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TRACING TEXTILES & THE CRAFTING OF AN INDIGO IMAGINARY
LABÉ, JANUARY 2024. It was a familiar scene. Mariama Sow sat on her worn wooden stool, and I sat facing her. The air was dry, the ground cracked from months with no rain, and the evening chill was already creeping in. She rested her hands on her knees, watching me with quiet amusement. It felt good to be back.
The last time I had been here, six months earlier, I was still trying to orient myself, searching for a way to recognize a place I had known only in childhood memories. “She is family,” my mother had reminded me as we drove into the village, “they all are.” On my final day then, just before leaving for Conakry, a phone call interrupted my departure. I should stop by Mariama Sow’s one last time. When I met her by the roadside, she didn’t speak. It was late, and she simply handed me a plastic bag, the thin handles pulling under the weight of its contents. Inside, wrapped carefully, was a piece of leppi, the word in pulaar to describe local hand-woven indigo-dyed fabric. We embraced without words, and I left. I returned to college and began plotting (i.e submitting funding applications) to return to Guinea and continue my research.
Now, sitting before her again, I finally asked the question that had been on my mind. “Why did you give me this?” I asked in my broken pulaar, gesturing toward the cloth I had brought back with me. She laughed, shaking her head. “When I was a child,” she began, her voice steady, “we didn’t have clothes like the ones you wear now. Everything we wore, we made ourselves. Cotton and indigo were everywhere. We would pick the cotton, spin it, dye it, weave it.” She pointed to the empty fields stretching beyond the house. “This land used to be full of it.”
Indigo's historical and cultural significance is as vast and varied as the landscapes it traverses. But in that moment, Mariama Sow told me a very simple story. One of inheritance, livelihood, and loss. I begin with this story of all, because it frames the interventions I seek to make in this project and introduces the people and places whose lives are intertwined with these traditions. Mariama's story paints a picture of indigo's role in our heritage and this narrative of personal connection and cultural inheritance drives the core of my research. Her story, as will unfold in the next chapters, is part of a larger narrative of Guinean society, offering insights into how traditions are transmitted, preserved, challenged, adapted, and challenged again over generations. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, I draw on oral histories, archival research, and direct textile analysis to contend with what indigo represents in Guinean society at different points in time. To this end, this exploration seeks to understand both the aesthetics of indigo-dyed textiles within Guinea’s cultural landscape and their roles as carriers of culture and history.
But how do you frame a project about a people and a practice defined by displacement? This question becomes key as this story seeks to trace a history marked by constant movement: people, cultures, and traditions in perpetual flow. My research navigates this fluidity by tracing indigo-dyed textiles across different epochs in Guinea’s history. From the pre-colonial period to colonialism and the post-independence era. Moreover, this project is not confined to the present-day borders of Guinea. It also considers the broader historical and cultural exchanges between Guinea and its neighboring regions, as well as the global currents that have shaped the country’s indigo traditions. By looking beyond national boundaries, I can better understand how Guinea’s indigo practices have been influenced by, and continue to influence, larger historical and cultural forces.
This approach is necessitated by the historical fluidity of these regions where entities (ethnic groups, sovereign states, occupied terriories, and more) have morphed and shifted over centuries. By focusing on particular historical periods in each chapter, such as the era of the Futa Jallon Imamate and the subsequent formation of the Guinean nation-state, this research maps the evolving contours of geographical and political identities as narrated and framed by the role of indigo textiles in each period. In this way, the inherent mobility of indigo, as both a commodity and a symbol, guides the narrative’s trajectory across established and emergent boundaries. This research deliberately challenges the traditional expectations of historiography, opting instead to follow the thread of indigo wherever it may lead.
The central argument of this project lies in its title. is deliberately chosen to reflect the active role these textiles play in their own historical narrative. They are envisioned as maps, as guiding documents, much like the blueprints used by architects to draft, plan, and project future construction projects. As I seek to showcase, these textiles serve as blueprints allowing us to navigate the past, and in key ways, the present. At times, these blueprints have been wielded to divide and conquer, while at other moments, they have been instrumental in constructing new forms of identity and nationhood. In all cases, they are intellectual objects, imbued with knowledge and meaning.
The subsequent chapters of this project undertake an exploration of the layered history from a series of vantage points, or vignettes as I like to consider them. This structure mimics the very act of weaving: integrating various threads to construct a narrative that is at times seamless and at other times deliberately inconclusive. This choice reflects the inherent complexities and the multifaceted nature of the indigo-dyed textiles themselves: a fabric of history woven from countless disparate yet interconnected strands. In so doing, ventures beyond the traditional boundaries of a scholarly thesis. It is moreso envisioned as a narrative journey, through time, space, and memory, navigated by the patterns and colors of indigo-dyed textiles. Above all, it serves as an open invitation to delve into one aspect of a cultural legacy that stretches across centuries, continents, and civilizations.
First, in Chapter I, I introduce the methodological approach I sustained in my research and argue that textiles are effective lenses for historical inquiry, reflecting and influencing the cultural, economic, and political dimensions of their times. In treating textiles with the same scrutiny as historical texts and integrating oral histories, I highlight how they can provide unique insights into marginalized communities and act as living archives that capture the intricacies of personal and collective memories.
Then, in Chapter II, I explore the historical significance of indigo dyeing within the Imamate of Futa Jallon, tracing how this craft shaped Fulani identity and the political landscape of the region. I argue that indigo-dyed cloth was a potent symbol of Fulani pride and social cohesion, embedded in the cultural and economic life of the empire. In particular, I examine the rise and fall of the Imamate, highlighting indigo's role in both reinforcing Fulani cultural unity and in the eventual disintegration of their political structures.
In Chapter III, I skip forward in time and analyze how independent-Guinea’s first President, Ahmed Sékou Touré championed cultural identity formation as a foundational element in his nation-building project for Guinea. I argue that while Touré elevated the arts such as music, theater, and literature as instruments of national cohesion and ideological education, traditional textile crafts were notably under-supported despite their aforementioned cultural significance. This selective promotion resulted in a diminished innovation in textile traditions, which I explore through a critical examination of Touré's policies and their impact on Guinea’s cultural landscape. In doing so, I highlight the broader strategy of cultural homogenization and the systematic integration of textile traditions into the national ethos, revealing how these practices were adapted to new socio-economic realities in post-colonial Guinea.
Finally, in Chapter IV, I delve into the legacy of Ahmed Sékou Touré’s cultural revolution in Guinea, particularly its impact on indigo dyeing and Fulani ethnic identity formation after his rule. I argue that despite Touré’s efforts to standardize cultural practices and promote national unity, his policies paradoxically reinforced ethnic-specific traditions. Through a detailed examination of the post-Touré era beginning in 1984, I illustrate how indigo dyeing not only persisted as a hallmark of Fulani culture but also underwent significant transformations in practice and symbolism due to socio-economic changes. This resurgence of indigo dyeing as a familial and now-predominantly female tradition underscores the precarious post-colonial dance between national cultural policies and ethnic identity preservation.
At the core of lies a simple question that threads through each chapter: What insights can a sustained study of indigo-dyed textiles tell us about the past? To this end, this project is and was never meant to be a historical account nor a telelogy of these textile traditions. Instead, it is an invitation to ponder their historicity. I invite you to ponder it with me...
Above is an extract/abstract of my undergraduate thesis. I am currently reworking it into a full-length monograph. If you would like to discuss my research, please feel free to contact me!