Kuba textiles
Kuba textiles are a type of raffia cloth unique to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, and noted for their elaboration and complexity of design and surface decoration.
Most textiles are a variation on rectangular or square pieces of woven palm leaf fiber enhanced by geometric designs executed in linear embroidery and other stitches, which are cut to form pile surfaces resembling velvet.
[2] The cloth is coarse when it is first cut from the loom, so it is then pounded in a mortar, which softens it and renders it ready for the application of surface decoration, for which women are responsible.
Many prestige weavings are dyed with twool, a deep red substance obtained from the heartwood of the tropical trees Pterocarpus sp.
[7] Early 20th Century ethnographer Emil Torday acquired the oldest group of extant textiles from the Kuba tradition from the reigning king, Kot aPe.
[7] According to Joseph Cornet, these cloths were embroidered by Bushong women who were pregnant with the King's heirs for use in rituals surrounding the birth of the children.
The slight sculptural relief, elaborate geometric designs, and technical cohesiveness of the textiles indicate that they were made by highly skilled elders.
[7] Textile weaving boasts a variety of motifs, such as guilloche interlace, which embroidery artists employed along with color, line and texture to yield varied compositions and visual effects.
The embroidery design is chosen by the female head of the clan, and she assigns different blocks to women based on their skill level.
Men of the clan weave the cloth, and each of the raffia squares that make up the skirt are decorated by separate women, each of who creates an independent design.
[2] Kuba textiles demonstrate a taste for interrupting the expected line; they compose through juxtapositions of sharply differing units and abrupt shifts of form.
The character of Kuba design accords with Robert Thompson's observation that some African music and art forms are enlivened by off-beat phrasing of accents, by breaking the expected continuum of surface, by staggering and suspending the pattern.
