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With poems by Florence G. Bartch, Esther Gilda Brown, Edith Claire Cam, John Ducato, William Plumer Fowler, Alice Hirch, Nettie A. Holbrook, Major Ralph Temple Jackson, Edward T. Maine, Helene Nissen, Julia S. Ronimus, Anna Louise Scannell, Frances R. Snow, Virginia Lee Terhune, Lucia Chafee Vogel ... Read more

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Unwrapping the Textile Traditions of Madagascar presents the first extensive treatment of Madagascar's textile traditions region by region, giving a systematic overview of the woven products of each part of the country. It includes types of cloth that have previously been overlooked and explores contrasting uses and meanings among the highly varied cultures of the island. It also publishes for the first time many of the remarkable cloths from the collection assembled by Ralph Linton in 1926 and 1927 for the Field Museum.which represents perhaps as much as 50 percent of the textile heritage of Madagascar.

Beautiful color illustrations and scholarly commentary make this book useful for scholars, connoisseurs, and heritage-preservation experts, as well as weavers interested in reviving traditional techniques and designs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

place of textile garments in multicultural African society
As major Madagascar art forms, shawls, dresses, loose-fitting shirts, and also burial shrouds are "fundamental to an individual's ethnic, ideological, spiritual, social, political, and economic identities." These and similar garments have such a place because of the "ease with which cloth can be manipulated." Among some groups in Madagascar, textiles woven by hand and simple, age-old, tools are central in relations between the living and deceased ancestors with the changing of decayed burial shrouds for new ones. Eleven essays by authors with a surprisingly eclectic background--including college teachers in archaeology and ethnology, museum curators, a biologist, and a poet--focus on particular topics of this African island nation's textiles attracting wide notice because of their quality of production, colorfulness, and social significance. An island that has for centuries been a crossroads of trade and migrations from southern Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, Madagascar textiles are particularly complex and diverse; and because of this historical background, they have special meaning for the different groups of the society, as well as for interaction among groups. Textile traditions in different geographical areas, reviews of collections of textiles, the wear of textiles at social events, and the island's silk moths are among the topics. Numerous color photographs, some close-ups in which the weave of a garment can be seen, make for appreciation of the varied textiles; while other photographs exhibit inhabitants of Madagascar wearing the textiles in social activities or ceremonies.
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