African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 205
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ISAK NIEHAUS
See also Divination; Gender; Religion
DRESS
African dress, a system of nonverbal communication, aids in personal and sociocultural
identification of African people in their daily lives. Dress involves both modifying and
supplementing the body with the involvement of all five senses. The visual aspects of
dress (such as shape, silhouette, and color) appear primary, but the other senses are also
involved, such as touching skin, textiles, or leather, smelling scents applied to or
associated with body or fabric, hearing the rustle of textiles or jangle of jewelry, and
tasting pomades or lipstick.
“Dress” is a more comprehensive concept than either clothing or fashion. Dress
encompasses more than clothing, for it includes covering and modifying the body. In
addition, although ritual and ceremonial dress may change, they are usually not
fashionable, for their rate of change ordinarily occurs more slowly than the concept of
fashion implies. Regalia of chiefs and rulers, such as those of the kings of Benin and
Yoruba people and the Asantehene of the Asante are one example.
Common patterns of dress differentiate groups and individuals from one another in
Africa, but idiosyncratic and personal styles are also frequent. Urban Africans in cities
like Dakar, Abidjan, Lagos, Johannesburg, and Nairobi wear styles in ap-parel, hairstyles,
and accessories current in the fashion centers of Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo,
because television, cinema, newspapers, and magazines, along with travel or study
abroad, influence them. However, Africans also display coiffure, body painting, clothing,
and jewelry that are identified not only as African but often as a marker of a specific
ethnic group. Such examples stem from community traditions that demonstrate a
continuity with the past, even when undergoing change. Many African men and women
wear cosmopolitan fashions daily, but choose ritual and ceremonial ensembles from their
ethnic heritage for special occasions and events like puberty rituals, funerals, and
marriage ceremonies.
A common African tradition of dress involves variations of wrapping cloth around the
body, fully or partially covering the torso. The toga-style associated with the political
figure in Ghana of the late Kwame Nkrumah and the Asante people exemplifies fully