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Bida cloth

Details

Title: Bida cloth

Date created: c.1978-1982

Accession number: ITC 2014.100

Place of creation: Collected in Nigeria - Bida; Made in Nigeria - Bida

Cultural origin: Nupe

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/670956

Collection group(s): International Textile Collection

Description

This is a light grey handwoven Bida cloth, woven by a Nupe woman on a vertical loom. (Bida is the capital of the Nupe kingdom in the Nigerian Middle Belt.) It is made up of two broad panels stitched together. It features warp stripes, predominantly in black and red, with weft float designs including lozenges, stylised hourglasses, highly stylised Koranic boards (boards used as ‘slates’ by children in Koranic school) and possibly stylised combs, in green, red, orange, yellow and black. This cloth has been used and frequently washed, so some of the colours have run.


The fringes of the cloth were tied by Eastern Igbo women residing at the donors’ house outside the city of Ilorin in the late 1970s or early 1980s.


Part of the O'Hear Collection.

Physical characteristics

Category: Textile

Technique: Textile - Woven - Handwoven

Medium: cotton

Object: width 139.2cm height 180.8cm

Accession details

Accession number: ITC 2014.100

Accession date: 06/08/2014

Source: Gift

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