Artistry Permits and Custom May Ordain - Northwestern University

30
traded to the East African coast were produced in western Madagascar. 121 From da
Costa’s visit to an island off northwestern Madagascar comes the most detailed
description of weavers in the Swahili world. Da Costa met women weavers just north of
New Masalajem, a town founded by Kilwan descendants, who used vegetable dyes that
produced “a thousand different colors” and wove both silk and cotton cloths. 122 Labor
was organized in such a manner that textiles could be woven-to-order and production was
quite rapid. In general, production seemed to be a cottage industry, relying on the output
of many horizontal looms typically occupying the length of extended corridors in the
houses of non-ungwana. 123
As regionally produced cloths found a growing number of commercial outlets, cloth
production and distribution integrated the Swahili world. Textiles made for the coastal
marketplace, like colorful silks or striped cloths, conformed to Swahili aesthetic ideals and
often appealed to the extremely wealthy in the Swahili world. Thus, contrary to Jarstorf’s
argument that the Swahili preferred imported items to locally manufactured ones, regional
ideas of quality and beauty helped sustain a thriving Swahili textile industry. 124 Indeed,
regional textile production even reinforced existing cultural currents that could be
discerned in the demand for certain types of cloths. Residents of the coast demonstrated
their culturedness by consuming Swahili cloth. In fact, production and consumption of
both high prestige-value and more affordable cloths, like those of Pate and Sofala
respectively, entered importantly into the determination of individual status or claims to
status in the Swahili world. It is to the modes of consumption among individual actors in
the Swahili setting that we now turn.
121 Cotton was spun, dyed, and woven in southwestern Madagascar. R. Temple, ed., The Travels of Peter Mundy in
Europe and Asia. 372.
122 P. Rodrigues da Costa, “Diário de Paulo Rodrigues da Costa,” in Os Dois Descobrimentos da Ilha de São Lourenço,
Mandados Fazer pelo Vice-Rei D. Jerónimo de Azevedo nos Anos de 1613 a 1616. Lisbon, 1970. 65-67.
123 Unfortunately, the type of loom in use is not discernible from da Costa’s brief description. All that can be said
is that it was not a vertical loom. In all probability, the looms were either single or double heddled horizontal. See
K. Schaedler’s treatment of East African and Malagasy cloths in Weaving in Africa South of the Sahara. Berlin, 1987.
399-441. Elsewhere it seems that cotton weaving may have been organized along clan lines. The Waswahili clan
of Siyu were known as formidable weavers and J. de Vere Allen has suggested that the early use of the term
“Swahili” could derive from the popular cloth. This is not evident from any sources known to me. See R. Trillo,
“Fashion and Fabrics.”
124 Jargstorf’s assessment may be more accurate for later periods, but this topic deserves greater attention. “To
Squander and Gain at the Same Time,” 240.