Aso Oke

Two loom technologies coexist in Yoruba country: the upright single-heddle loom, used by women, and the narrow-strip double-heddle loom, used mostly by men. Aso oke is the product of the narrow-strip loom. Narrow strips are woven and sewn edge to edge into a cloth. Women's weaving declined sharply in the late 20th century, though since the 1990s increasing numbers of women have taken up aso oke weaving.

Three cloths form the classical hierarchy:

• Etu — a deep blue, almost black indigo cloth, built through many dye immersions and often marked with very thin lighter stripes. Its name means guinea fowl, after the bird's speckled plumage, and an Ifa verse calls it the father of all cloths.
• Sanyan — a pale brown, slightly uneven cloth woven from the beige wild silk obtained locally from the cocoons of the Anaphe moth. It is often described as the most prestigious and expensive of the group.
• Alaari — woven from magenta silk, historically imported across the Sahara from southern Europe via Tripoli until the early decades of the 20th century. It was rarely used alone: it more often appears as stripes or weft-float decoration within indigo cloth. Some modern sources describe it as a rich red cloth of cotton and silk.

Descriptions of colour and fibre vary between sources, so treat any single description as a guide, not a specification.

Stripes in warp and weft are the basis of most designs and of an elaborate vocabulary of pattern names, although pattern naming has declined since the 1970s. Other techniques include ikat (resist-dyed warp sections), which was popular until the 1960s, supplementary weft-float or brocade designs (triangles, combs, "Koran boards", checks), and openwork, where extra wefts tie groups of warps together to form holes and a surface pattern.

Colonial-era imports of English-style cotton goods and foreign yarn competed with hand-woven cloth, and cheaper mass-produced fabrics remain a pressure on weavers. At the same time aso oke is described as more popular than ever among the growing Yoruba population, and designers are bringing it into contemporary fashion. Some weavers use modern looms to raise output.

• Ask which town the cloth was woven in and whether it is narrow-strip hand-woven or machine-made.
• Ask about the fibres. Wild silk (sanyan), imported silk and cotton or synthetic yarn give very different cloths and prices.
• Ask how the indigo was applied for etu: many immersions produce the characteristic depth.

• Aso Oke: The Prestigious Fabric of Yoruba Culture, MoMAA (describes the three prestige cloths, the loom and uses; cites no named sources).
• Nigerian Men's Weaving, Adire African Textiles (looms, etu/sanyan/alaari, patterning and 20th-century change; refers to Captain Adams, Bray on Iseyin, O'Hear on Ilorin, Clarke, Renne).
• Yoruba clothing, Wikipedia (general overview; used for orientation only).