Adire Eleko ("resist pasted on")

Date20th century

Maker Nigerian

Maker Yoruba

Label TextIndigo is a natural dye that sometimes suggests the hues of a midnight sky, shadows of dusk and dawn, as well as a melancholy mood. In Nigeria, plain cotton shirting began arriving from England in the early 20th century. It was disregarded until indigo dyers began making the cotton into canvases by using feathers or stencils with cassava paste. In order to achieve the deepest blue-black, the cloth would be dipped repeatedly in a dye vat. One cloth quotes from the proverb, Atari Ajanaku Kinse Eru Omode:"The head of an elephant is no load for a child."

Object number2001.979

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Indigo, May 9 - Oct. 19, 2003. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Mood Indigo: Textiles from Around the World, Apr. 9 - Oct. 9, 2016.

Credit LineGift of the Christensen Fund

Dimensions78 3/4 x 69 5/16 in. (200 x 176 cm)

MediumCotton cloth, factory woven plain weave, paste resist (adire eleko) with indigo dye