Nigeria · Yoruba textile traditions / Undated type or practice · no individual specimen
Adire, resist-dyed cloth
The pattern is also a refusal
The Smithsonian explains adire through the selective blocking of dye on cloth. A pattern is produced partly by where colour cannot enter. This is skilled material work, not simply decoration that can be detached from its making. Set adire beside printed textiles and ask how a repeated motif depends on tools, preparation and time. Museum descriptions can explain a process while leaving the terms of sale and the maker’s daily life unrecorded. We retain that limit: this entry introduces a technique and points to a collection record, without inventing the biography of its maker.
- Date
- Undated type or practice · no individual specimen
- Maker / designer
- Yoruba makers; individual maker unrecorded
- Material
- Cloth, indigo and dye resist
- Context
- A comparative record of work and shared life. Inclusion does not assign a socialist identity to its makers.
Evidence: Date not established · Place recorded at country level
Historical record
- Smithsonian National Museum of African Art · Wrapper · 96-1-19
- This is a type or practice record, not a provenance for a particular household object.