Isishweshwe: Threads of Colonialism and Global Exchange

Known as isishweshwe, shweshwe, or shoeshoe, this popular fabric here, now produced most famously in South Africa by De Gama Textiles, has a history in South Africa that reaches back to  the mid 17th-century and highlights the connections between global exchange, colonialism, textile production, and development. 

A spotty timeline of shweshwe:
- 1652:  indigo cloth arrives at the seaport established in the Western Cape.
- 1850s:  German Protestant Settlers bring printed indigo fabric known as German or Jeruman print with them to South Africa.  The cloth was popular with workers in Central Europe because of its relative inexpensiveness.
- 19th Century:  Indigo cloth imported primarily from India and Holland.
- 1890 German factory develops a synthetic indigo dye still in use today.
- 1930s:  Imports of indigo cloth predominately come from Lancashire at this point - the Three Cats brand comes out of Manchester.  The fabric is used for garments in South Africa that are worn by slaves, Khoisan, Sotho, Xhosa, and Voortrekker women.
- 1940s:  French missionaries  present King Moshoeshoe I of Lesotho of printed indigo cloth.  This is one of the "origin" stories for how the fabric got its name of "shoe shoe."  The other origin story attributes the name to the Xhosa name from the swishing sound it makes when the wearer walks.
- 1982:  Production of shweshwe begins in South Africa when UK company Tootal invests in De Gama Textiles, trademarking their version "Three Leopards," which was their version of Manchester's "Three Cats."  Two new colors, red and brown are added using the same design prints.
-1992:  De Gama Textiles purchased the sole rights to own and print the Three Cats range of designs.  It still produces the original German print.

Production Process:
The process has remained the same since the 19th century.  First, cotton fabric is woven (plain weave) to a width of 90cm.  The fabric is dyed with an indigo paste (originally natural, now synthetic) and a discharge agent is applied with a copper roller (also with 90cm widths) to remove the indigo and reveal a pattern.  When De Gama purchased the exclusive rights to produce the fabric, the copper rollers were shipped over from Manchester.  The designs were often intricate small series of dots or geometric motifs.  Starch is applied to the fabric - originally used to preserve it on the voyages from the UK to SA. 

Because of the starch used, genuine shweshwe has a characteristic stiff hand upon purchase and a pleasant oily smell.  After you purchase the fabric, you wash it before your begin sewing with it.  Like indigo denim, the fabric will remain relatively stiff and gradually soften with each wash, eventually achieving a buttery hand but retaining its strength.  In the picture above, I've shown some samples I have already purchased:  the primary example in the  is a genuine piece produced by De Gama in one of the Three Cats designs.  The cost for a little over a meter (I purchased it by the amount of panels, as much of the shweshwe is printed with line guides, where four or five panels = an A-line skirt since that is one of the most popular garments made from it) was R30 (a little over $5 US).  The two patterns cutting across the top left of the photograph are actually imitations made from cheaper cotton and a standard cotton printing technique.  These two prints cost only R5 (less than $1 US) per meter, but will likely fade quickly upon repeated wear.  I suspect I will use these second two for quilting projects. 

The history of textile production and exchange is also the history of the industrial revolution and global exchange.  Economist Petra Rivoli, among others, identifies massive textile production as the key to first Britain and then the United States' industrial and economic development and even argues that Japan's textile production 100 years after the United States (in the early to mid 20th century) contributed to its development as an economic "powerhouse."  As much as my research interests align with textile production and conceptions of economic development, I'm reticent to believe this direct correlation and the simple causality it suggests is as  direct as Rivoli argues.  For example, the shift back to textile production in India in the 1940s forward hasn't necessarily translated into massive industrial development.  Over the past twenty years, cotton growth in the Eastern Cape here in South Africa, has helped the country begin to develop its own substantive textile industry.

There have also been fascinating connections made between the development of synthetic dyes in Germany and economic development (in particular in the work of sociologist Andrew Pickering).  My friend C, a chemist and researcher at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has agreed to fill in the gaps of my knowledge and provide some additional background on indigo - he will post it in the comments section.

Comments

[a fat chemist]

Filling in gaps huh? Well, I find indigo particularly interesting for both chemical, economic, and social reasons. Indigo is an isatin dimer and is constructed from two indole structural units, the same precursors to a number of important natural products such as melanin, melatonin, serotonin, tryptophan, and the indole alkaloids among many others. It is also a convenient starting point for the synthesis of lysergic acid (LSD); however, I won't elaborate any further on that topic.

From a more socioeconomic perspective I find indigo dyes interesting for a couple of reasons. Purple and blue dyes (typically shades of indigo) were restricted to aristocratic classes throughout antiquity, because the pigments were extracted from plants grown in India, southeast Asia, and Africa and very expensive to acquire. The current chemical industry at large was founded on the production of synthetic dye in the late 1800s. Adolf von Baeyer was the first to synthesize indigo in a lab in 1878, with a commercial process to follow from BASF in 1897 (I've pulled these dates from the all-knowing Wikipedia). It's not in the wikipedia article, but if memory serves me correct from an early sophomore organic chemistry lecture, he was researching an alchemy-type reaction (e.g. turning lead into gold) and obtained a black sludge (not a good sign for a chemist). However, when he extracted the material with an organic solvent, he observed the beautiful blue-purple hue of indigo. The impact of this discovery was substantial and immediate. Purple and blue dyes were now attainable by people well outside of the aristocracy, significantly devaluing the symbolic importance of the royal color. The farming of plants for extraction of the dye became unprofitable and subsequently collapsed. Almost all indigo is made synthetically these days.

The commercialization of indigo dyes is one of the very first examples of the power and potential of the modern chemical industry. It demonstrated that valued materials could be made synthetically in a lab, commercialized, and have a huge impact on economic markets.

[Mark]

I love the fact that this discovery was a by-product of attempts at alchemy! I've always found alchemists to be a fascinating subject... I mean, how can you go wrong with a guy named Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim Paracelsus?! They also liked working with piss a lot... not sure why...

[a fat chemist]

Chemical availability and cost are particularly influencing factors in chemistry. What's more ubiquitous and cheap than urine? It's also rich in nitrogen sources (urea, uric acid, ammonia), which is probably why it was investigated so frequently. Personally, I buy it from a commercial chemical supplier...but I consider myself a pretty rational chem grad student; I can't say the same for everyone.

[mar]

Fat Chemist has got a point Mark - urea rocks, especially when it comes to dyeing cloth, specifically in direct application of dyes (like making tie-dye or other hand-dyeing processes). It can be synthesized from a natural gas, but it's kind of more festive if it comes from the urine of mammals, don't you think (waste not, want not, right?). It's not used for vat dyeing, but in hand-dyeing it works really well to dissolve more dye in a given amount of water (esp for strong/dark colors) and attracts water (referred to by the cool word "humectant") to keep the fibers you're dyeing damp so the dye will react permanently.

Also C - I certainly didn't mean to suggest all you're good for is the chemistry side of life. Heheheh. It sounds like (as if you don't have enough work to do / stuff to read) you might enjoy looking at Andrew Pickering's article at some point - it's called "Decentering Sociology: Synthetic Dyes and Social Theory" and it was published in _Perspectives on Science_ in Fall 2005.

[Mark]

Well, I'll file all this info away under "cool things I know about urine." Actually, I think I need to make a new file for that... [gets out metaphorical sharpie and blank manila folder]

[baju batik]

the Three Cats brand comes out of Manchester. The fabric is used for garments in South Africa that are worn by slaves, Khoisan, Sotho, Xhosa, and Voortrekker women.

[Cialis]

his post makes me wonder. What essential equipment would you pack with you in your time machine? More importantly, how would you use it? In many cultures, using something as simple as a flashlight could get you burned at the stake!