Artistry Permits and Custom May Ordain - Northwestern University

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more elaborate and costly clothing, generally in accordance with Islamic standards. 142 The
ungwana wore two seamless cotton or silk cloths, one wrapped around the waist and
reaching to the feet—what would today be termed a kikoi or shuka 143 —and another
wrapped across the torso and over one shoulder covering the waistband of the former, as
well as a turban or embroidered cap. 144 Castanheda, writing in the late 1500s, described
the merchant elite at Sofala as having “silk turbans on their heads” and “girt below [their
waist] with cotton and silk cloths, and similar cloths over their shoulders and under their
arms.” 145 De Gões also described the ungwana of Sofala as “covered from the waist
downwards with silk and cotton cloths, with similar cloths over their arms, silken turbans
on their heads, pieces of amber on their wrists, and in their girdles naked knives with ivory
handles ornamented with gold.” 146 Knives and swords (upanga kule) were associated with
“honored mouros” only; often ornamented with ivory and gold, they were items of
symbolic value based on their association with interregional commerce. 147 Additionally,
Mawr and others noted, “All persons of quality carry prayer beads” (tasbihi) and most
wealthy men wore leather sandals. 148
The double cloth style of dress described in the early Portuguese sources is no
longer extant on the coast, though the shuka is still worn. 149 While the double cloth has
been replaced in the last 150 years by the ever-popular long and loosely fitting shirt called
the kanzu, the draping of particularly costly and ornate fabric over the shoulders (kashida)
or wrapping a shuka-type cloth around the torso and over one or both shoulders while
wearing a kanzu is still common in many Swahili towns, particularly in areas less affected
142 The clothing of the elite was in many ways reminiscent of compulsory dress at Mecca. The only exceptions to
Islamic proscriptions for male dress were that Swahili men often wore silk and jewelry. This seems to have been
a common infraction in the Indian Ocean region. See K. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation
of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge, 1990. 307.
143 The sixteenth-century terms for these cloths are not known, but it is telling that in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries the term doti, or the name of a specific type of Indian cloth, is also substituted. A. Prins, The
Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. London, 1961. 112.
144 “Descrição da viagem,” 528.
145 Canstanheda, 387.
146 D. de Gões, Historia, in Records. 124.
147 De Barros, 1:liv. 2, cap. 10. “In their belts they wore naked . . . which they call quifios.” It is also probable that
gold and copper rings were also common for elite males. See Chittick, Kilwa. II:452-3.
148 “Descrição da viagem,” 531.
149 I know of only three photographs (taken in the Lamu Archipelago) showing men dressed in a fashion similar
to that which sixteenth-century Portuguese observers describe. See “Men of Faza, 1902” (26), “Men of Siu” (23),
and “Tomb of Twaka, Lamu, 1904” (45), W. Hichens Collection: Photographs relating to the history of the East
African Coast, Herskovits Africana Library, Northwestern University.