2017.20.2 Man's prestige wrapper

Kente is the best known and most popular of the Asante textiles. Oral traditions credit a spider’s web-making with having inspired two hunters to create the first kente. Osei Tutu I, the first king of the Asante, reserved the cloth for royals. Over time, with greater varieties of colors and materials, kente became accessible to more of the population. 

Silk kente with named designs continue to be limited to Asante elites. The twenty-four strips sewn into this kente contain a composite design created from two others—Oyokoman and Asonawa. The first of these, Oyokoman (derived from the Oyoko royal clan), is identifiable from the wide gold and green stripes embedded in a dark red field extending the length (warp) of each strip. The meaning of the second, a weft pattern (crossing the width of each strip), is unknown.

Cultures
Akan (culture): AAT: 300016000
Asante: AAT: 300016004

Geography 
Ghana (nation): TGN: 1000166
Bonwire (inhabited place): TGN: 7668940

Process/materials
weaving: AAT: 300053642
silk (textile): AAT: 300243428

prestige: AAT: 300343604
nobility (nobles / aristocracy): AAT: 300025942
kente: AAT: 300014085
patterns (design elements): AAT: 300010108

PROVENANCE 
1960-2009: Donald Simmons, United Kingdom

2009-2016: Kapil Jariwala, London

2016-2017: Andrés Moraga, Berkeley

From 2017: Dallas Museum of Art, African Collection Fund purchase from above 

The main source for this provenance is information already entered in TMS. 

Apply to objects where number equals 2017.20.2