Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory CoastArtClothMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below other posts in this series:
Diversity of African Textiles
African Textiles: West Africa
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part I
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part II
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part III
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part IV
Djerma Weaving of Niger and Burkina-Faso
Woolen Stripweaves of the Niger Bend
Nigerian Horizontal - Loom Weaving
Yoruba Lace Weave
Nigerian Women's Vertical Looms
The Supplementary Weft Cloths of Ijebu-Ode and Akwete
Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory Coast
African Stitch Resist
Yoruba Stitch Resist

Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory Coast
The Dida live on the Ivory Coast, where they traditionally make their living by fishing. For ceremonial occasions, they plait strands of of raphia into loincloths or skirts, cloaks and kerchiefs, giving them patterns by means of tied resist and dyeing them with natural dyes in a color palette of forest colors. Red and black on yellowish ground is preferred.

Ceremonial kerchief made of plaited and then tie-dyed raphia worn by a member of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.

Dida ceremonial tie-dyed skirt made of paited raphia.

A cloak, turbular skirt or loincloth will typically be decorated with circles, ovals and rectangles, often combined with distinct areas of dots. All motifs are formed solely by variations in the tie and dye technique.

Ceremonial plaited raphia skirt decorated with bold tie-dyed motifs worn by a woman of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.

Adams and Holdcraft state (1992) that the yellow dye is obtained from the roots of a shrub and the red from the hardened root of a tree, while the black is said to come from a combination of managanese and leaves. As with all tie dyed work, the garments are dyed from the lightest color to the darkest - in this case, first yellow, then red, then black. Where the black shades into red, a reddish-brown color results, but it remains pure black on the fringes of the garment.

Ceremonial plaited raphia skirt decorated with bold tie-dyed motifs worn by a woman of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.
Note: The black fringes.

According to textile expert Noémi Speiser, the technique used for the turbular obli que interlacing is unique. The set of rafa filaments - the total number can reach as much as 1500 elements - is tied into a bunch and then attached to a fixerd point. It is then split into groups of roughly 5- elements.

Dida Ceremonial Raffia Tie-dye Ivory Coast.

Half of these groups will move on the S-course, half on the Z-course, this behaving like warp and weft in weaving. Those on thr Z-course are fixed with leashes of a contrasting color, hanging downward and roughly knotted together. They are attached to their group throughout.

Dance skirt from the Dida people of Ivory Coast.

The worker starts handling two groups, one leashed and one bare, while holding several adjacent heddles grouped between the toes of her outstretched legs.

Astonishingly she forms sheds and introduces 'wefts' without any fixed tension on the 'warp'. In turn, the near ends of each group are made taut by either hand when not engaged in spreading, brushing, smooting or selecting wefts.

Pulling the leashes downwards makes one shed. The countershed is created by drawing the leashed group upwards, which make the tips of the leashes lie above the non-leashed layer. Each two groups produce a diamond area of loose and irregular lacing, which must be smoothed by rubbing with a small, smooth pebble. When the diamonds have been replicated all the way around the tube, they are interconnected by the next traverse row of diamonds. Then, row after row, the tube grows along the natural length of the raphia filaments and ends in roughly knotted fringes. This ingeneous application of simple weaving technology to braiding/plaiting makes it possible to produce these usually large pieces of oblique interlacing.

Reference:
[1] J. Gillow, African Textiles, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London (2003).