Adinkra Cloth

Reading this week is a story call the "Talking Cloth".  It's a story about a girl who's aunt has collected wonderful things from her travels around the world.  The girl in the story likes to go to her aunt's house to hear the stories about the different things.  This story explains about a type of Adinkra Cloth.

Adinkra Cloth originally was only worn by Royalty and Religious leaders.  It is the richly dyed and printed cloth from the people of Ghana.  Most of the shapes are symbols with special meanings.  Also the colors were important.  White meant Joy, while Red meant Sadness.  Blue meant Love and Green meant Growth.  The shapes were put on the cloth by putting a wood cutting into ink and stamping it on the cloth.  This meant that they could say lots of things based on the color and symbols on the cloth.  I've included a picture of some of the different Adinkra Cloths.

One of my projects for reading application and art was to come up with an Adinkra Cloth of my own pattern. I'm still working on what symbols I'd have one it, but I know I would want it to be green.  I think I would change what green means though.  I want green to mean Excited!  I also have been thinking about the shapes. I think anything with a square outline should mean sneaky. Circle shapes should mean Joy or happiness.  I also think that I would want to have metal string woven or embroidered into the cloth like in some of the really expensive cloths written about in my book.