Adire wrapper

Adire is a popular form of surface ornamentation in the Yoruba culture in which designs are created by resist-dye techniques. The maker of this wrapper applied cassava starch to the cloth using a metal stencil to create blocks of lines, dots, and geometric forms. After immersing the cloth in indigo and rinsing the starch away, the designs stayed unstained while the rest of the wrapper colored blue. Rather than being purely decorative, the motifs on adire textiles are often intended to play a protective role and have mystical significance for the Yoruba people.