Indigo and Nigeria--Tamsin Barzane

You may have seen some of the beautiful indigo cloths at Saminaka--the tablecloths at our restaurant, or some of the clothes at cacao and Cinnamon Brigade. And you may have taken a look at our new Nigerian plant display over in the katamba, the big Nupe round exhibit hall. Indigo originated in Africa, but it quickly spread to India, where it was domesticated, reaching eastward to Japan.

The shrub's leaves are soaked in water and fermented to produce dye--a fairly complex procedure that calls for the addition of other strong chemicals that allow it to dye cotton a range of blues that approach black. In Nigeria, this is usually a multi-dip procedure. In the Middle Belt and South, women usually dye the threads, while in the North it's the men who do the work.

It's an old procedure, used to dip threads or cloth, but also used in tie-dyeing cotton sheeting. Yoruba women paint sheeting with a starchy paste from cassava, let it dry, and dip it in the dye in a process similar to batik--but the starch isn't as impervious to the color as wax is, so the resultant pattern, once it's done and scraped, is light blue against dark, rather than white against blue. They also stitch patterns into the cloth and draw the threads up tight, then dye it, the stitches (later cut) creating delicate lines, or use metal stencils to push starch through in a faster method.

I'm an adire collector--the patterned Yoruba cloths--but love indigo cloth in all its variations. I love the smell of fresh overdyed indigo--sharp and distinctive. I remember the way it used to stain my skin when it was newly purchased, the way I was caught in a rainstorm and saw the blue dripping down my arms and legs. On Saminaka that won't be your worry, but you can get a sense of the huge variety of beautiful directions one color can take.

Africa all bright colors? Oh no, not everywhere! But these are blues you'll really enjoy.