Mali Assn. of Culture and Hope

Bogolan Art

Strips of textile are made from cotton. This is woven in the villages, from where Kader collects it. It’s cheaper than from buying it in the market.

Later the fabric is stitched together to make larger pieces of fabric. The stitching is sometimes done by the children. The fabric is then dipped four times in to a solution made from cooking leaves of the Ngalma.

This process acts as a fixative for the dye that comes from painting the treated fabric with the mud from the river Niger. A reddish colouring is obtained using leaves from the Npekou tree combined with mud and wood ash.