In Madagascar, hand woven silk and cotton textiles remain potent symbols of authority, wealth, status and identity. Textiles play a prominent role in ceremonies, particularly in rural areas, and serve as a sign of respect for local, ancestral custom. This connection between hand woven cloth and the ancestors is emphasized in the widespread use of textiles in burial and reburial ceremonies throughout Madagascar.
There is great variety in Malagasy burial ceremonies, but throughout the island cloth plays a major role. Siblings, children, grandchildren and other relations are required to offer cloth to wrap or bury with the body. By dressing the dead, descendants ensure the deceased's continued social existence in the next life. Elaborate funerary rites acknowledge the ancestors and their mystical powers that hold the key to an individual's fortunes and misfortunes. When pleased, ancestors bless the living with prosperity and fertility.
Eminent symbol of their wealth and dedication to the deceased, individual descendants often conspicuously parade their cloth offerings into the ceremony or display it for the assembled community to judge. Close kin are eager to search out the best, most expensive burial cloth they can afford, preferably silk. The finest cloth a weaver will make in her lifetime, however, is never for sale, for it is the cloth she makes as burial wraps for her own mother and father.
This particular cloth was made from two panels that were hand-stitched together. On this cloth, the contrasting white, weft-float, geometric designs called akotso that adorn either of the cloth are composed of small hourglass shapes.
Description:
Two-panel woven cotton textile with broad black stripe and narrower reddish-brown stripe along outer edges of the cloth, with central design area composed of narrower black and white stripes bordered by thin strips of yellow, green and brown. White cotton weft float patterns run horizontally along either end of the cloth, the wider central weft float design bordered by a narrow band above and below. The weft-float designs are composed of large and small X or hour-glass shapes. The ends of the cloth are hemmed, with no fringe.
Provenance:
Collected in Mahitsy market, Madagascar, 2000
Exhibition History:
Gifts and Blessings: The Textile Arts of Madagascar Malagasy, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, April 14-September 2, 2002
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