About Hausa Babban Riga
The babban riga is the great gown of Hausaland: cotton woven by men in narrow strips on horizontal treadle looms, seamed into a body over two metres wide, sunk in the Kano dye pits until the indigo will take no more, then beaten with a mallet until the surface answers light like hammered copper.
On that ground sits the work — `aska biyu`, two knives, paired triangles pointing down across the front pocket, with spirals turning tighter front-right and centre-back. Raised silk, couched by hand, several people, several months. This system keeps that order: dark burnished field, one dense worked zone, long quiet cloth elsewhere.
- Origin
- Hausaland — Kano, Zaria and Sokoto, northern Nigeria and southern Niger
- Era
- 19th century into the mid-20th century, on a much older Sudanic tradition
- Key figures
- Usman dan Fodio · Muhammadu Bello · Heinrich Barth · Philip J. Shea
- Movements
- Sokoto Caliphate court dress · Kano indigo pit-dyeing · trans-Saharan silk trade
Hausa Babban Riga design spec
Colors
Typography
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