Art Institute of Chicago

Ceremonial Skirt

Bushong, Kuba

Date

Late 19th century

Medium

Raffia, plain weaves; pieced; appliquéd with plain weaves in pearl stitches; embroidered in pearl stitches; edged with bands of cotton, warp-stripe warp-float faced twill weave; cotton, plain weave; pieced and hemmed in slip and pearl stitches; and cotton, warp-float faced alternating float weave; joined with raffia in pearl and twisted insertion stitches

Culture

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Department

Textiles

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Individually worked panels were sewn together to create this expansive skirt embellished with a kinetic array of patterns. The central floating motifs add lightness, especially when contrasted with the black-and-white checkerboard edge. Kuba men are responsible for preparing and weaving raffia, while Kuba women cut the appliqúe shapes freehand to decorate the cloth. To make a skirt of this size, several women from the same extended family would construct different sections. The abstract forms may represent stylized humans, animals, plants, and objects. Constituting a kind of encrypted script, the repeating motifs—including circles, lozenges, and L-shapes—function as building blocks for the entire design. The comma-like shape that appears across parts of the skirt is called ishina'mbua, which translates as "dog's tail"—a symbolic reference to the animal's keen sense of smell and vision as well as the spiritual qualities that the Kuba associate with the animal.

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