Kanga

What is Kanga?

A kanga is a rectangle of printed cotton worn by women, and now and then by men, around the African Great Lakes. Some places call it a leso. It measures roughly 150 cm across and 110 cm deep. A border, the pindo, runs along all four edges, and the middle field, the mji, is patterned separately, so the two rarely match. Shops sell them in pairs, and a buyer can cut and hem them into a set. The cloth is lighter than kitenge, the heavier print kept for dressier clothes. Most kangas made today carry a saying in Kiswahili, and many have a symbol at the centre.

Where does Kanga come from?

Two stories are told about where the kanga began. One traces it to merikani, an unbleached American cotton sold in Zanzibar, which enslaved men tied at the waist and women wrapped below the arms. Women dyed it black or dark blue with local indigo, making kaniki, a cloth people scorned for its link to slavery. After abolition in 1897, former slave women decorated their merikani by resist dyeing, block printing or painting it by hand, and the kanga became a mark of standing. The other account points to lencos, kerchief squares Portuguese traders carried from India and Arabia; women in Zanzibar and Mombasa sewed six of them into a 3x2 rectangle. The name is said to come from the guinea hen, also called kanga in Swahili, whose spotted feathers resemble the earliest patterns.

How is Kanga made?

The cloth is cotton, printed rather than woven to pattern. For a long time most pieces came from presses overseas, in India, Europe and the Far East. From the 1950s printing shifted onto African soil: the MeTL Group Textile Company works in Morogoro, Tanzania, while Rivatex and Thika Cloth Mills are among the biggest printers in Kenya, and other countries on the continent also produce their own. A piece is cut to size, printed with a border and a central design, and sold with a matching second cloth. Many buyers then trim and hem the pair before wearing.

Colours, motifs and borders

Each kanga is rectangular with a border, the pindo, on every side and a central motif, the mji, that is separate from it. A symbol often sits in the middle. The earliest patterns were dotted or speckled, like the plumage of a guinea hen. The saying, called jina or ujumbe, runs on a strip of its own and is usually in Kiswahili; Arabic or Comorian appears less often. In the east of the region Kiswahili rules, while central areas mix Kiswahili with Lingala. Words were first set in Arabic script, then in Roman letters. In Madagascar the cloth is a lamba, carrying ohabolana, proverbs in Malagasy.

How Kanga is worn

A common way to wear it is in two parts: one cloth over the head and shoulders as a shawl, the other tied at the waist. It can serve as a skirt, a head wrap or an apron, and mothers use it to carry a baby on the back. Dancers wear it for chakacha, a Swahili dance. No stitching is needed to hold it on; the cloth is folded and knotted into place, and the pair can be cut and hemmed if the wearer prefers a finished set.

When Kanga is worn

Kangas are working cloth as much as dress: a towel, a pot-holder, a wrap for the fields. They are also given as presents on birthdays and other special days, and in Tanzania they go to a grieving household, paid for by a michengo, a collection in which neighbours each put in a little money. A kanga may be handed to a couple at a wedding to voice the giver's doubt about the match, so the proverb on it has to be read before the cloth is wrapped.

Styles of Kanga

Kitenge is the heavier, more formal printed cloth; the kanga is the lighter everyday one. Two men's cloths look similar, the kikoy and the kishutu, and the kishutu counts among the oldest known patterns, probably named for a Tanzanian town; it is often given to a young bride as part of her dowry, or by a healer in rites meant to rid someone of evil spirits, which is why it may carry no proverb. Madagascar prints its own lamba with Malagasy sayings, and versions are made in Zambia and Malawi too.

What Kanga means

The words on a kanga let a woman speak without speaking. Messages travel between women on the cloth, about love, money, politics, schooling, health or faith, and are often built as riddles or proverbs, some warm, some barbed. During campaigns, women wear a particular kanga to make a point to the community. Since the end of slavery the cloth has also stood for independence and personal wealth. Traders once marked their pieces: Kaderdina Hajee Essak, called Abdulla, of Mombasa, stamped his as K.H.E. - Mali ya Abdulla and added a Swahili proverb.

Questions people ask about Kanga

Good reading and sources

• Kanga (garment) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data