Shoulder cloth (Enanka)

Maasai

This cloth is manufactured outside Maasailand and all Maasai women wear it for special occasions. During the Enkipaata festival, a pre-circumcision ceremony, boys undergoing initiation must dress in enanka. Otherwise, men are prohibited from wearing this cloth.

Cotton

42 1/2 x 62 in. (108.0 x 157.5 cm)

General Acquisition Fund

2000.12.19.1

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Maasai Community Adorns a Bride, May 31, 2001 - Mar. 1, 2005.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]).

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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