Woman's ceremonial overskirt
Secured with a belt, this delicately embroidered wraparound skirt was layered over a paler gold underskirt. Such sumptuous ceremonial garments accented the ensembles worn by elite women in dance. Their performances have accompanied initiation and investiture rites, as well as reenactments of creation by the supreme deity Mboom. Female artists achieve the dense geometric interlace by painstakingly embroidering short strands of natural and dyed fibers. They then shave the surface of the embroidery to create a velvety pile. The quality and elaboration invested in an overskirt depend on the rank of the intended wearer, reinforcing the hierarchical social structures that defined the Kuba court between the nineteenth and mid-twentieth century.
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