Alindi (also Futa Benadir, Toob Benadir); named finished products include futa (men's wrapped skirt), guntino (women's wrapper), and go (a shorter shawl-like cover)
The pit-loom weaving of striped cotton cloth by male weavers of Mogadishu and the adjacent Benaadir coastal region of southern Somalia, a textile tradition documented continuously from at least the early 14th century to the present. The weaver sits with his feet in a pit dug beneath the loom, the warp threads gathered into a single knot, tied to a length of rope, and anchored to a wall hook; as weaving progresses and finished cloth winds onto the cloth beam, the weaver re-anchors the warp to the rope at a new point closer to the hook, feeding tension to the loom throughout the process. The most favored finished pattern, midab boqoreed ('royal colors'), is a striped design historically inspired by the coat colors of certain goats. Ibn Battuta, visiting Mogadishu in 1330, described its textiles as 'unequalled,' exported as far as Egypt; by the 19th century an estimated one in five Mogadishu residents worked as weavers, and the Jubaland Plain's cotton fields were reported producing over 350,000 pieces of cloth annually. Historically women spun the cotton thread while men wove it on the pit loom; when American mass-produced gray cloth began undercutting the trade in the early-to-mid 19th century, Somali weavers responded by developing local cotton cultivation along the Shebelle River in the Benadir hinterland rather than continuing to rely on imported raw cotton, and from the late 1950s began incorporating brilliant new colors -- reds, blues, yellows, blacks, and purples -- using both local vegetable dyes such as saffron and dyed yarns imported from India and Pakistan.
Risk level: Endangered · Not independently inscribed
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