Scope and Contents
Photographs were taken by Agbenyega Adedze during a Smithsonian-funded trip in 1989. They document textile marketing and production among the Ewe people in Togo and southeastern Ghana, as well as an Ewe festival in Togo. Images of a cloth market in Agbozume, Ghana, show activities such as buying and selling thread and all stages of weaving on a narrow strip loom including laying the warp, sewing strips together on a sewing machine, and assembling the finished garment.
Objects depicted include beaters, cloth such as batakali, dyed thread samples, heddle straps, iron pegs, loom foot pedals, reels, shuttles, shuttle bobbins, tool boxes, and weights. People portrayed include children weaving, cloth sellers, a family of dryers, and weavers. There are also images of cloth stalls in a market and storefronts. Festival images, taken in Notse, Togo, show people dressed in Ewe strip-woven cloth.