Pre Colonial Yorubaland
The most apparent use of clothing in precolonial Yorubaland was protection from weather elements, and preventing nakedness and voyeurism. According to Oguniran, clothing also served to project identity--anything ranging from gender, status, and age (Oyeniyi 43). Lighter colors were worn during warmer seasons and usually consisted of wearing a wrapper on the lower half of the body and leaving the upper half of the body bare. Yoruba cloth was also worn during various occasions. Based on Oguniran’s observations, he divided the occasions into four distinct groups: work or professional engagements, casual, ceremonial and simply, aesthetically pleasing (fashion) (Oyeniyi 44). Within those distinctions, there is still social rank. Take for example
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Upon reading the introduction, one will notice that many terms used for clothing also represent other objects and do not represent the clothing in question in totality. This creates a problem when relying on oral culture to identify clothing. There is also a lack of evidence for sources beyond 1 or 2 generations (as most as most history of dress is relied upon by oral cultures, folktales, and folklore and formal writing was not introduced until the late nineteenth century). Most of the pre-colonial clothing evidence is shown to belong to the ruling class. The aforementioned is logical in that most people (even today) who can afford art are those who are well off and have some type of surplus currency that can afford the luxuries. Because of the aforementioned, the way in which working class individuals was mostly elusive (save for a few examples in the text of how farmers dressed when working). The final important weakness was that because much of precolonial Yorubaland is defined by oral history and archaeology, the years in which different clothing styles were adopted are absent. While one may be able to identify an estimate age in which different clothes were worn, the author of the ethnography did not provide any explicit dates when describing clothing styles. Without knowing the year in which different styles were adopted, it is impossible to know the exact way sartorial culture evolved over
Upon reading the introduction, one will notice that many terms used for clothing also represent other objects and do not represent the clothing in question in totality. This creates a problem when relying on oral culture to identify clothing. There is also a lack of evidence for sources beyond 1 or 2 generations (as most as most history of dress is relied upon by oral cultures, folktales, and folklore and formal writing was not introduced until the late nineteenth century). Most of the pre-colonial clothing evidence is shown to belong to the ruling class. The aforementioned is logical in that most people (even today) who can afford art are those who are well off and have some type of surplus currency that can afford the luxuries. Because of the aforementioned, the way in which working class individuals was mostly elusive (save for a few examples in the text of how farmers dressed when working). The final important weakness was that because much of precolonial Yorubaland is defined by oral history and archaeology, the years in which different clothing styles were adopted are absent. While one may be able to identify an estimate age in which different clothes were worn, the author of the ethnography did not provide any explicit dates when describing clothing styles. Without knowing the year in which different styles were adopted, it is impossible to know the exact way sartorial culture evolved over