Kuba & Shoowa Cloth

The Kasai region, in the heart of Central Africa. A man weaves squares of raffia. A woman takes up a small knife and cuts into them.

Kuba cloth comes from the Kuba kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a confederation of peoples that includes the Bushoong, Shoowa and Ngeende. Men weave raffia palm fiber on angled looms; women soften, embroider and shear the pile into the plush, velvety Shoowa prestige panels once exchanged as currency, gifts and funeral offerings. Long tcaka dance skirts are pieced from many squares and finished with appliqué, cowries and the arrow and interlace motifs of a visual script said to derive from Kuba scarification. A dancer wound many yards of it around the body.

Raffia ages to straw and rust.

Matisse kept Kuba cloth in his studio. He knew what he was looking at.