Culture
Adire: The Art of Nigerian Indigo Cloth
A living Yoruba tradition
Amara Nwosu 12 min 4.7Sep 28, 2025
About this story
Adire cloth — hand-dyed with indigo using wax-resist and stitch-resist techniques — has decorated Yoruba communities in southwestern Nigeria since the early 1900s. This story follows the dye pits of Abeokuta and the women who keep the craft alive.
TextilesYorubaCraft
Transcript preview
Narrator: In Abeokuta, the smell of fermenting indigo has drifted through the same courtyards for generations.
Narrator: Patterns are drawn in wax or bound in raffia thread before the cloth ever touches the dye.
Narrator: Each finished pattern carries a name, a meaning, sometimes a proverb.
Chapters
Author
AM
Amara Nwosu
Nigeria
Oral historian and archivist documenting pre-colonial West African kingdoms.
Languages available
🌍 English🇳🇬 Yoruba
