"ADIRE - Our National Heritage"

The History of Adire

Ehikodi Thelma

Adire is a resist-dyed cloth produced and worn by the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria West Africa. The Yoruba label ‘Adire’, which means “tied and dyed,” was first applied to indigo-dyed cloth decorated with resist patterns around the turn of the twentieth century.

Adire-oniko

 

With the introduction of a broader color palette of imported synthetic dyes in the second half of the twentieth century, the label “Adire” was expanded to include a variety of hand-dyed textiles using wax resist batik methods to produce patterned cloth in a dazzling array of dye tints and hues. As a distinctive textile type, Adire first emerged in the city of Abeokuta, a center for cotton production, weaving, and indigo-dyeing in the nineteenth century. The prototype was tie-dyed kijipa, a hand-woven cloth dyed with indigo for use as wrappers and covering cloths. Female specialists dyed yarns and cloth and also refurbished faded clothing by re-dyeing the cloth with tie-dyed patterns.

When British trading firms introduced cheap imported cloth and flooded the market with colorful inexpensive printed textiles, the Adire industry emerged to meet the challenge. The women discovered that the imported white cotton shirting was cheaper than handwoven cloth and could be decorated and dyed to meet local tastes. The soft, smooth texture of the import cloth, in contrast to the rough surface of kijipa cloth, provided a new impetus for decoration. The soft shirting encouraged the decorators to create smaller more precise patterns with tie-dye methods and to use raffia thread to produce finely patterned stitch-resist Adire Alabere. The smooth surface of shirting led to the development of hand-painted starch-resist Adire Eleko. Abeokuta remained the major producer and trade center for Adire, but Ibadan, a larger city to the north, developed a nucleus of women artists who specialized in hand-painted Adire Eleko. The wrapper design Ibadandun (“Ibadandun” meaning “the city of Ibadan is sweet”) is popular to this day.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a vast trade network for Adire spread across West Africa. Adire wrappers were sold as far away as Ghana, Senegal, and the Congo. At the height of Adire production in the 1920s, Senegalese merchants came to Abeokuta to buy as many as 2,000 wrappers in one day from the female traders. In the twenty-first century, the new colorful Adire continues to meet fashion challenges and to be an alternative to machine prints. In continually changing patterns, new Adire appeals to the fashion-conscious Yoruba in the urban and rural areas. In Nigeria one can still buy indigo-dyed Adire-oniko and eleko made by older women in Abeokuta and Ibadan and by artisans at the Nike Center for the Arts and Culture in Oshogbo where the artist Nike Davies-Okundaye trains students in traditional Adire techniques.

 THE MAKING OF ADIRE

Mrs. Akpino, who resides in Abeokuta and a professional in the making of Adire, teaches that Adire can be made in two ways. "Tie and Dye popularly called “Adire” can be made in two ways. The first is the Batik Style. This involves drawing patterns on foam or wooden plate which will be immersed into hot candle. The candle must not be too hot and not too cold, and then the foam or wooden pattern will be imprinted on the cloth. Afterwards the patterned cloth will be dipped into mixed dye which would have been measured and mixed according to the quantity of cloth. Then the cloth is removed from the dye solution and dried for a while before being immersed again into hot water so as to remove the candle wax completely from the cloth. The second method is the tye and dye method which in Yoruba language is called Adire-Oniko.  Adire-Oniko is tied or wrapped with raffia into to form various patterns. Afterwards, the tied cloth is immersed into dye solution. Once the dye has penetrated enough into the cloth, the cloth is removed from the solution, rinsed thoroughly, starched and dried." The traditional production of Adire involves the input of two female specialists—dyers (Alaro), who control production and marketing of Adire, and decorators (Aladire), who create the resist patterns and also markets the finished products.

Production of Adire-oniko
 

Production of Adire using the Batik style

PRESERVATION OF ADIRE AS OUR HERITAGE

The import of cloths from oversees have posed a great challenge in the Adire making industry. In order to preserve Adire as our heritage, continuous patronage of same by Nigerians instead of stocking our wardrobes with various types of imported clothes is needed. Let’s sample the views of youths on their patronage of Adire.