Natural Plant Dyeing

After the I&eaves have been “’ ’
collected, they are beaten $’
into a paste. This is a scene
in Liberia.
hollow stick. In its hollow was the winking enough sky, thr blue will cone to my skin
red eye of :L lun~p of charroal for lighting from inside me. With luck, my hair will :
the sacred fire. 1~ thunder-blue.” ’ < .
Asi walked c~aln~‘lly, her head high. and Asi shivered then abecause she knew
straight as she neared the altar hecaust~ th:it a sr(‘ress trust ilot beg anything for
one does not rush with unsrenlly hnstr to herself at the holy pools ; one must ask ’
a sacr;d place. She collected sticks from, only for the entire people of the- village. +
the forest am1 lighted the fire hetwcen She had done a sel,fish, wicked thing just 1
three rocks which held the sacred clay pot when she should hnvc been most pure 5x1 .
which was :llw:lys left in the forest. After her heart. Fear sh&k her body as, she
she had spread her lappa on the earth’and carried water for the rice’toward thkfire. :
made a --“cushion of lr~vrs under -it ~ to Wld KIS done ws done, the w,icked
soften the place for her child, she walked thought had taken hbld of her, she musi +
. without clothes to the bank of the stream J)eg. forgiveness of .the water spirit and I,
.’ where she w d rirkc the pot ,and take bthink nz,w of her sacred task?’
materfor cooking.
On sunny days strips of cloud came to
0 When the pot of water had been set 1
above the fire, Asi sat, with ‘her back’ ”
lie down in the river. One could look against the great silk-cotton tree, waiting ,,
down into the deep pools, and see the for the wate?“‘to boil. “I ivill eat some
heantiful blue color of the sky lying there &\- HOW to nlakc my heart lie& down and ”
in the. sacred wetness. Asi had’ eyes ‘and be :&ill,! Asi told, herself. Reaching up,
heart that wrre hungry for color. To’Asi, _ SIP hkke nfl a strip ofbsky as long as a
the blue of the pools was the most beaiiti- plantain leafan? began to feed her lonely
ful color in all the. borld. Asi looked back, heart. .
at the bank of the stream where her,;child 4 With the first stiallow,pf sky, bgutiful
was lying on the white lnpprr. Th6 color thouyhts filled Asi. She felt herself within ,
of the white lappa seemed a ,dead and the roots of the tGes far below her in the
lifeless thing thnt‘had never known sun, t*ivcr-wrt seil. The roots,,nuxzied the earth
or rloud or sky. i’
“Perhaps,” thought
R’
Asi, ’ “if I eat
to drink, the holy wetness-the -way a~baby ‘.
nuzzles x mother’s breast to find’ milk.
i .
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