Object Number: T/NIGE/562

Collection: British Empire & Commonwealth

Object Name: clothing

Description: This is a man’s gown from Gambia. The vast size of this gown makes it a riga giwa (gown of the elephant). The riga giwa is a tailored gown made by the Hausa, derived from Tuareg Saharan riding dress, which spread through Nigeria and all of West Africa. The spread of this dress occurred as part of the spread of Islam throughout West Africa, but has now become a version of national dress, meaning not everyone who wears it is necessarily Muslim. This gown is made of burnished fabric in 60mm strips, which has a dark indigo sheen, achieved by overloading the fabric with indigo dye and then beating the cloth. Burnished cloth is a speciality of the Hausa people and is highly prized, with a high prestige value, meaning it is costly. The Fulani royal and noble classes usually wear this type of material. The fabric is often also associated with the Tuareg (often called the blue people), who were extremely influential in the spread of Islam, and wear this indigo dyed cloth as clothes and turbans. Embroidery under the collar on the front of the gown shows a traditional aska biyu (two knives) design, complete with a gidam biyar (five houses) pattern on the right side of the knives and a traditional spiral on the left - this is a very traditional version of the aska biyu design. The spirals are extensions of structural features which are used to strengthen the neck of the gown, known as the linzami and the sharaba (two constructional parts of the collar). The linzami is the piece of fabric added to the inside of the collar to make it asymmetrical; the sharaba is reinforced fabric which runs from the bottom left-hand corner of the collar up, alongside the linzami, to the top of the collar and then across the top of the collar, stretching beyond the neck opening. The spiral embroidery on the back of the gown sits slightly to the left of the collar and is again in the same indigo as the fabric. You can see imprints of the embroidery from the front of the gown on the back of the gown; these probably happened during the beating of the cloth.