Kikoy / Kikoi (Swahili) · Banadir (Somali coast trade name)
A kikoy is a single rectangle of cotton cloth wrapped at the waist and rolled over once or twice, mostly regarded as a sarong. It also serves as a baby sling, a towel or a head wrap. Its patterns are woven into the cloth, not dyed or printed onto it, which separates it from the printed kanga (see our kanga guide).
The origin is contested, and the sources are mostly commercial or general reference pages, so none is conclusive. A widely repeated account says the kikoy reached Kenya from Somalia, with the city of Barawa known for weaving it and a type called banadir named after the Banadir coast. A second account points to Oman and maritime trade with the Arab world, with the cloth worn by Arab merchants as a sarong before Swahili communities adopted it. A third thread is documentary: a Portuguese-era report from the 1630s describes cotton cloth as a major part of Mombasa's trade with neighbouring Mijikenda communities, which shows cloth was central to the coast's economy but does not mention the kikoy by name. A museum record of a kikoy bought in Lamu in 1983 describes it as handwoven and said to come from Somalia.
The kikoy is associated with the Swahili people of the coast, where men wore it mainly as a wrap. It is now worn more widely, including by the Maasai of Kenya and by men in Tanzania and Zanzibar, and it remains a popular souvenir for tourists visiting Kenya.
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