2017.20.5 Kente cloth (green with peppers)

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 name of this design, mokowa, translates to “little pepper” and refers to the multicolor sections of weaving interspersed within the cloth’s green background. Although this is not an elite kente pattern, it would have been a prestigious garment because it is made entirely of silk. 

Cultures
Asante: AAT: 300016004

Geography 
Ghana (nation): TGN: 1000166

Process/materials
silk (textile): AAT: 300243428
weaving: AAT: 300053642
supplementary warp (warp patterning): AAT: 300228475

Subject terms
clothing: AAT: 300266639
prestige: AAT: 300343604
nobility (nobles / aristocracy): AAT: 300025942

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 2017.20.5