Africa Indigo cloth-dyeing in Labé

Know someone who loves Africa and things African ?

Send them the address for this page.

See it! Touch it! at These Stores

Click here to see Indigo !

Indigo cloth-dyeing has long been known in the Futa Jallon, the northern highlands of Guinea. The people involved, and the traditional and non-industrial nature of this craft and the way it is practiced today make it fascinating.

Handmade and unique. There is a multitude of designs tied into the fabric. Most are hand-sewn, and, because the women sew each piece of cloth individually by hand, each individual piece is unique. This is true even for those designs sewn by machine, because there too each piece is individually sewn. In addition, each woman dyer will have her own version of a design depending on how tightly the designs are tied.

Kinds of cotton cloth. All indigo dyeing in Guinea is done on 100% cotton cloth. Three main kinds of cotton cloth are used, including "leppi", a loose-weave cloth woven locally, as well as imported cotton damask and percale.

Natural dye. Indigo is a natural dye from the leaves of the indigofera plant, which is found in the Futa Jallon. Indigo is not colorfast, so some dye will come out during the first few washings. Guinean indigo is a bit less colorfast than the indigo in blue jeans.

Tie threads, the newness guarantee. The women or children who take out the tie threads are not careful to take them all out, for it is the cut tie threads that serve as the guarantee to the buyer that the piece of cloth is brand new and has not been worn or washed.

Painting by Abdourahmane Barry...Click to enlarge

The history of indigo cloth-dyeing in Guinea. In the feudal kingdom that preceded colonization by the French, cloth-dyeing was practiced by people living among the Fulbe who then ruled the Futa, as well as by a few Fulbe.

Indigo cloth-dyeing has greatly changed from that time until today. The early cloth-dyers found all their raw materials in the surrounding area. The first cloth-dyers of the city of Labé, from 1940 onward, also used exclusively local inputs. It was by imitating these first cloth-dyers that many women from Labé and from the neighboring town of Pita took up cloth-dyeing as a principal moneymaking activity.

There followed a period of competitions organized for weavers and cloth-dyers in the Centers for the Promotion of Women. This was during the time of Guinea's First Republic. During this time traveling merchants would also export cloth to markets like Lomé, in Togo.

Today we find that cloth-dyeing is the most important way that Labé women earn money. Up to 5,000 women are involved in some part of the process. In one of Labé's neighborhoods, nearly everyone is involved in cloth-dyeing, even the men and the children.

In the past 5 to 10 years, the cloth-dyeing sector has begun to operate on a new and larger scale. Along with these changes, most dyers have switched to supplementing the local inputs with manufactured inputs, including industrial indigo, caustic soda, and sodium hydrosulfite. These inputs were imported through Liberia before the Liberian civil war, but now are imported principally from Banjul in the Gambia.

The sheer volume of production made supplementing local inputs with imported inputs necessary, if only to keep from destroying the supply of local inputs. However, most cloth dyers agree that the best results are obtained by maintaining their dye barrels with a base of the local ingredients and adding imported ingredients as necessary.

The developments over the past decades have produced a number of associations and other groups of cloth-dyers in Labé, Pita, Kindia, Mali, Yambering, and elsewhere in Guinea. However, few of these are actively functioning today. Much more common today is a master dyer working with her apprentices and subcontractors. As the apprentices "graduate", they either begin work on their own or stay on working with their teacher for pay.

During this entire period with all its changes, the cloth-dyers always enjoyed a close relationship with the weavers of Popodara, Dionfo, Pita, and elsewhere, with the weavers producing for the cloth-dyers according to their tastes and preferences.

Inputs. Local inputs include the fixing agent for the dye known by the local name of "wanda". It is the root of the tree of the same name. Wanda is found especially north of Labé in the towns of Mali, Yambering, Sannou, and Tougué. Wanda is the best way to fix the local indigo, and if an imported substitute is used today, it is only to keep from overusing the local wanda.

Locally produced caustic soda is known by the name of "chekkiri". Chekkiri has been largely replaced by commercially produced caustic soda.

The local indigo comes from the indigofera bush, of which the leaves are used in the cloth-dyer's mixture. It is found almost exclusively in the Popodara and Timbi Madina areas west of Labé. Local women collect the leaves of the bush, cook them, and form them into ping-pong-sized balls to sell to the cloth dyers at the weekly markets.

The process of cloth-dyeing. The cloth is first prepared for dyeing by making tied or sewn designs either by hand or with a sewing machine. Several weeks before actually dyeing the cloth, the cloth-dyer prepares a mixture of the fixing agent, the caustic soda, and the dye in a barrel (usually a 55-gallon drum).

When the cloth is ready to be dyed, it is soaked in the dye mixture for a few minutes and then is taken out and dried. This process is repeated a number of times until the cloth-dyer is satisfied that the cloth has absorbed enough dye and that the color has taken to the cloth well.

After this, the threads used to make the designs are taken out, and finally the cloth is pressed or ironed. The most common way of pressing the cloth, however, is not by using a normal electric or charcoal iron, but by beating the cloth with wooden clubs to flatten it out and to give it a glossy finish.

People involved. The cloth-dyer and the other women of her family are usually involved in sewing or tying the designs into the cloth. Any cloth-dyer with a sufficient volume of orders also subcontracts out this work to other neighborhood women. The number of people who benefit from the cloth-dyeing is much greater than the number of cloth-dyers. It includes many women who do not have the capital to begin dyeing themselves, the desire to devote themselves to all the tasks involved, or the willingness to live with the dyed hands that mark the cloth-dyer.

The cloth-dyer takes responsibility for preparing the dye mixture. She also usually does the dyeing. However, quite often she does the work with other women who have come to her to learn the process. They consider themselves her apprentices.

Unless the work volume is such that she cannot take care of all the work herself, the cloth-dyer and her family do the tasks of removing the threads and pressing the cloth themselves. However, it is nonetheless quite common for this work to be subcontracted out as well.

Contact Information

Contact Information