Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part IV of a four part pancocojams series on kente cloth.
While the other videos in this series focused on kente cloth wearing customs in the United States, this post features videos of kente wearing parties and events in various other nations throughout the world. These eight featured videos are of kente themed parties in Australia, Canada, Norway, The United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium.
As a bonus, a video of the Asantehene (King) Osei Tutu II's visit to Atlanta, Georgia [USA] in 2004 is also included in this post.
Click these links for three other posts in this series about contemporary customs of wearing kente cloth:
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/02/wearing-kente-cloth-stoles-during.html
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/02/african-day-worship-services-in-african.html
and
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/02/kente-cloth-worn-by-american-gospel.html
The purpose of this post is to showcase the different kente cloth designs and showcase the way that Ghanaians wear kente.
The content of this post is presented for cultural, religious, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the all those featured in these videos and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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By no means is this meant to represent all the nations in the world that have had kente themed parties. For example, a video of a kente party in the United States, and a video of a kente parties in Italy are also found on YouTube.
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BACKGROUND
Kente parties and dances are social dance events in which men and women, most of which are of Ghanaian descent, wear outfits made out of kente cloth. The summary statement for the video given as Example #2 below indicates that the party is "A Celebration of Kente cloth as a symbol of Ghanaian culture".
These social occasions provide opportunities for Ghanaians living internationally to socialize together and reinforce their ties to their culture.
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FEATURED EXAMPLES
These examples are posted in chronological order, with the oldest dated examples presented first.
Example #1: AustraliaGhana Kente Dance Melbourne 2 [Australia]
Azantoa, Uploaded on Feb 3, 2009
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Example #2: Kente Dance in Vancouver, part 2 B.C 2009 [Canada]
mansah adom, Uploaded on Dec 9, 2009
A Celebration of Kente cloth as a symbol of Ghanaian culture by Ghanaians living in British Columbia, Canada .
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Example #3: amammere.wmv [Norway]
unitymedia, Uploaded on Jul 11, 2011
kente party Stavanger-Norway
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Example #4: GHANA INDEPENDENCE DANCE 2011 [The United Kingdom]
emabcreations,·Uploaded on Apr 14, 2011
Aren't they beautiful? the ladies, the men, the style, the traditional kente dress, the song, the groove, the catwalk, etc = colours of the rainbow !! just lovely !!
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Example #5: ..Kente Dance Hamburg 2007 [Germany]
desepaet Jones, Uploaded on Jul 29, 2011
Celebration of the westafrican traditional fabrics Kente
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Example 6#: Kente Festival 2012.mpg [The Netherlands]
Gives Own. Published on Sep 25, 2012
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Example #7: Kente party 1_d [Spain]
Yakubu Mone Fuseini Published on Feb 18, 2013
Gh. Union of Logroño La-Rioja (Spain)
Kente party. Part 1. 29th Dicember 2012.
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Example #8: ADVERT FOR KENTE & AFRICAN WEAR PARTY 2013 (BELGIUM)
nkosuohene, Published on Apr 2, 2013
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BONUS VIDEO: KING OSEI TUTU II VISITS ATLANTA
oupipeestudios, Uploaded on Apr 6, 2007
Ghana's geat king visit to Atlanta
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_of_Asante
"The Asantehene is the absolute monarch of Ashanti and the Ashanti (or Asante) people...
The Asantehene is the ruler of the Ashanti people and the Kingdom of Ashanti, historically a position of great power. The Asantehene is traditionally enthroned on a golden stool known as the Sika 'dwa, and the office is sometimes referred to by this name.[3] The Asantehene is also the titular ruler of Kumasi, capital of Ashanti. The Asante state, or Asanteman (also known as the Kingdom of Ashanti, Ashantiland, Ashanti and Asante, Empire of Ashanti or Ashanti Confederacy), comprises the Ashanti region. The Ashanti Empire and Confederacy comprised part of present-day Akanland (southern Ghana) and portions of present-day eastern Côte d'Ivoire between the 17th and 20th centuries.
The current Asantehene is Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II, born Nana Kwaku Dua, who ascended as the 16th Asante ling in April 1999"...
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I'm not sure when King Osei Tutu II visited Atlanta.
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RELATED LINKS
Click http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/12/kente-cloth-ghanas-ashanti-cultural.html for information and beautiful photographs of men, women, and children wearing kente wraps. Women wearing kente wraps contrasts with the clothing styles of almost all the women in the videos featured in this pancocojams post. In those videos, the women wore sewed two piece close fitted tops and fitted long skirts made of kente cloth, and most of the men who wore kente outfits wore kente wrapped around toga-like (with one shoulder out) along with long Western style pants and sandals without socks. A few of those men wore a short sleeve shirt under the kente wrap, but most of the men wearing kente cloth wore no shirt underneath it.
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Click http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/kente/strips.htm for pages on the museum exhibition "Wrapped In Pride"
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Thank you for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
After watching these videos of the Ashanti (Asante) men wearing their toga-like wraps, I've got these two questions:
ReplyDeleteWhat is the Akan name for the toga like wraps that these Ashanti men wear?
and
Which came first, these Ghanaian men's togas or the Roman (Italian) men's togas?
From my brief review of online articles on the topic of Roman togas and Asante kente wraps, it appears that the Romans custom of wearing togas is much earlier than the Asante [Ashanti] custom - Roman togas- before the 2nd century BC . "After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn exclusively by men, and only Roman citizens were allowed to wear the toga." -Wikipedia: Toga
Delete"Historical accounts trace the origin of Kente weaving to early weaving traditions in ancient West African Kingdoms that flourished between 300 A.D. and 1600 A.D. Some historians maintain that Kente is an outgrowth of various weaving traditions that existed in West Africa prior to the formation of the Ashanti Kingdom in the 17th Century. Archaeological research has dated examples of narrow-strip cloths woven in West Africa as early as the 11th Century A.D. and perhaps earlier." http://kente.midwesttradegroup.com/history.html
Also, from my brief perusal of articles about Roman togas, Asante [Ashanti] kente wraps, I also learned that females also wore kente wraps- as seen in some of the videos in this post if I had looked more closely.
Btw, here's a quote about Libyans wearing togas from that same Wikipedia page on Togas: "The toga is also used by peoples that can claim descent from Romanized Punics, such as the Arabized Berbers of Tripolitania, in Libya, the most prominent example probably being the late Muammar Gaddafi."
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It also occurs to me that the short kente cloth that the man dancing in the video entitled "King Osei Tutu II visits Atlanta" wore around his waist like a sarong reminds me of the short wraps worn by some ancient Egyptian men in a number of cave paintings.
The Wikipedia page on sarongs list the names of that material tied around the waist that are used in various African nations, but not Ghana.
Are there words in Akan and Ewe languages for kente wraps for males and for females?