Ashanti people are famous for their hand-woven ceremonial Kente cloth Other traditional crafts include wood carving, brass figures gold jewellery, basket weaving, and drum-making. Villagers tend to specialise in one particular craft, and skills are passed down through the generations. Many of the local markets have disappeared, as has happened all over the world, so traditional skills are being adapted to create items for tourist and export markets.

kente cloth

Kente cloth is unique to Ghana and is widely used for ceremonial costumes, weddings, naming ceremonies, and other celebrations. Kente is woven in long narrow strips, about 14 cm wide and 11 metres long. The cloth is very colourful; the weavers use a variety of colours together and the designs can be triangular, hexagonal, or geometrical shapes.

The centre of Kente weaving is the village of Bonwire, near Kumasi. The story has it that over a hundred years ago, two brothers went into the bush and found a spider weaving its web. When they came back to the village they got the idea of making some kind of cloth based on the design of the spider’s web.

Weaving, on traditional narrow looms, is usually done by men, but women are involved in sewing the strips of cloth together and marketing the finished product. Kente can be either single or double weave, and is made from cotton, silk, rayon, and 'shiny’ [lurex] thread. The double weave is stronger, thicker, and more expensive, but all Kente weavers are able to use both techniques.

making a drum

Lovely to look at, wonderfully evocative to hear, djembe (jem-bay) drums from northern Ghana take time and skill to make
	It takes two to three days to carve and hollow out a djembe drum.
Abukarie Mohammed pounds fresh goat skins in a mortar to soften them. They are soaked in ash and water overnight, then soaked in a mixture of water and tree bark or maize stalks, to stain them various colours. After this, they are laid out in the sun to dry.
	It takes about 15 minutes to measure and make the metal rings for the drums. There are three on each djembe, two at the top rim and one on the bottom.
The skins are fumigated before fitting and then soaked again to make them more pliable and to ensure a tight fit.
	Twisted lengths of hide are wrapped around the metal rings to cover them, and then comes the complicated threading and tying of the tensioning rings. The tensioning of a djembe is altered by loosening or tightening the leather cords.
The proof of any drum is in the playing. Drum-making in Ghana is a skill which is passed down from generation to generation.

Photos for Oxfam GB by Penny Tweedie and Sarah Errington

Virtual journey arts and crafts page | Ghana virtual journey home page | On the Line home page