African Mud Cloth. The Bogolanfini Art Tradition of Gneli Traoré of Mali (review)

Ongoing global journeys as a student of textiles introduced me to diverse cultures. I found that certain weavings were a vexing enigma, including a cotton cloth embodying painted black and white designs, encountered during my travels in Mali, West Africa. Unknowingly, I was looking at bogolanfini (its popular name is mud cloth), created by Bamana women artists of Mali. This scholarly monograph accompanied an exhibition at the African Art Museum of the Society of African Missions in Tenafly, New Jersey, between May 2006 and January 2007. The textiles in the exhibition are illustrated in the catalog section of the volume, written by Pascal James Imperato, a leading authority on the Bamana and their art.

In its simplest terms, bogolanfini is cotton cloth pretreated with a mordant; then mud is painted onto the cloth as the background for geometrical designs that then will appear on the cloth. However, as the author explains, the process is much more complex. The geometricized designs and patterns on bogolanfini echo the Bamana world and have specific names and meanings that often depend on context of use—resulting in a "fluidity of meaning, which follows no set rules..." (53). "The names of specific designs and patterns do not necessarily give a hint of their deeper meanings. These names can be viewed as windows into a world of encrypted symbolic knowledge. There can be varying levels of meaning to a design or pattern and differing symbolism based on context. Encryption coupled with fluidity of meaning serves to protect the specialized knowledge of Bamana artists, who prize their secrets" (40). Bogolanfini is used as clothing in such items as women's wrappers and men's trousers, shirts, tunics, and bonnets. It is and was a "profoundly traditional fabric used by women at crucial stages of their lives such as excision, marriage and childbirth, and by male hunters who believe that the designs and patterns are imbued with powerful nyama capable of protecting them in the bush" (5). (Nyama refers to vital life force, energy or power.)

Until recently there was a paucity of scholarly literature on bogolanfini, even though the first description appeared in 1903 in a European publication. However, early accounts were summary and did not provide details on the creation of this textile or any information about the names and meanings of the designs and patterns depicted by bogolanfini artists. That changed in 1970 when Imperato published a richly illustrated article in African Arts entitled "Bogolanfini: Mud Cloth of the Bamana of Mali," in which he provided the first comprehensive description of how this textile is created and the names and meanings of some of its most common designs and patterns. This article served as the major reference on the textile for many years and stimulated renewed interest in bogolanfini. In recent years, a number of other scholars have greatly contributed to our knowledge of bogolanfini, including Tavy D. Aherne, Sarah Brett-Smith, Pauline Duponchel, Victoria L. Rovine, and others, whose publications are cited in the author's extensive references. Imperato also provides a comprehensive account of all of the literature that has appeared on bogolanfini.

This volume is focused on a renowned bogolanfini artist, Gneli Traore, and her children and students during the period from 1965 to 2000. For the first twenty years, she created bogolanfini. However, in response to a lessening demand for traditional bogolanfini, accompanied by a new and rapidly growing interest in modern derivative textiles illustrating similar designs and patterns, bogolan was born, an urban-produced textile whose origin is bogolanfini. The pressure of family economic necessity caused Gneli Traore to shift to bogolan because "While traditional bogolanfini requires labor intensity, high skill levels, and meticulous care in fabric processing, much of the modern derivative cloth, bogolan, does not" (69). Because of the time that he devoted to...