Object Assessment - I.0072 - Lele Raffia Textile Belt

Object Assessment - I.0072

                                                       Figure 1: I.0072. Folded, as stored.

I.0072 is a textile piece, made by the Lele people of the Kasai region of western Democratic Republic of the

Congo in the mid-20^th century. It was collected by Mary Douglas, the famous anthropologist who subsequently worked at UCL, during her ethnographic fieldwork on the Lele (Douglas 2013, Douglas 1958), and is assumed to have been acquired by UCL in the early 1950s.

                                                            Figure 2: I.0072. Unfolded.

The textile piece, described in the catalogue as a belt, is made up of several stitched together panels of woven raffia palm fabric. It is approximately 0.9m long and 0.1m wide. A simple, plain-weave pattern was used (Landi 1998) [Figures 3 and 4]. Weaving was likely to have been done on an inclined, single heddle loom (Svenson 1986). At least two different coloured organic dyes have been used in order to create stripes running the length of the belt – light-beige (which is likely the natural/un-dyed colour of the raffia palm), brown, and reddish-brown (Figure 2). Along one length of the piece, 71 tassels or ‘pom-poms’ have been tied to the belt using raffia thread. The exact material of the ‘pom-poms’/tassels and their method of manufacture is not known.

Figure 3 and 4: detail – cm^2 showing plain weave pattern detail, and comparison between tightness of light-beige and brown weave.

The manufacturing processes of raffia textile was interwoven in the social fabric of Lele life. Gender, age and status dynamics can all be seen to play out in the construction of the fabric – men traditionally wove the fabric, while women embroidered. Aside from being used as clothing, raffia cloth amongst the Lele was also used as a form of currency and had an important economic and social role – it was exchanged at times of rites of passage, such as weddings and funerals, and created within the society a system of debt which balanced the hierarchies of the society, with older men possessing the most fabric and the most power (Douglas 1958). The integrated social role of textiles in Lele society adds to I.0072’s significance, as does the connection to Douglas’s ethnographic work. The continued preservation of this piece allows for the possibility of Lele people reconnecting with lost aspects of their past culture. 

The belt is in a stable but fragile condition. There are several areas of fraying (see Figure 5), and the shape of the belt is somewhat warped due to its folded storage position. Stains include pale marks over large areas of the belt, which are suggested to be past water damage, and a darker, reddish stain of an unknown substance (Figures 5 and 6). Handling should be kept to a minimum, and a storage solution which reduces the need for handling, and thus reduces the risk of fraying, is advised.

Figure 5: detail – fraying damage on reddish-brown strip. Suggested water damage on brown strip.

                      Figure 6: detail - cm^2 area of light-beige woven fabric, showing dark stain.

Bibliography

Douglas, M., 2013. The Lele of the Kasai (Vol. 1). Routledge.

Douglas, M., 1958. Raffia cloth distribution in the Lele economy. Africa, 28(2), pp.109-122.

Landi, S., 1998. The textile conservator's manual. Routledge.

Svenson, A.E., 1986. Africa, Zaire, Kuba: an introduction to raffia textiles. In Textile Conservation Symposium in Honor of Pat Reeves, 1 February 1986 (pp. 58-62).