Country cloth; the wearer/weaver-adjacent social category historically termed "lappa women" in Liberian social-stratification literature
The hand-spinning, dyeing, and narrow-strip weaving of thick cotton cloth by Gola, Lorma (Loma), Kpelle, Vai, and related peoples of Liberia, using the distinctive tripod loom found almost exclusively in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone. Historically Liberia's primary dress fabric before the arrival of European and Dutch wax-print imports, country cloth was produced within a structured, gendered labor system — men wove on the tripod loom while women were responsible for spinning, dyeing, cloth finishing, and trade — and carried direct social meaning: the weight, weave, and context of a garment communicated the wearer's family status, wealth, and ceremonial standing. The fabric circulated through regional trade networks connecting Liberia to Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, and Sierra Leone. Indigenous Liberian women who wore the cloth were historically categorized in social-stratification literature as "lappa women," a colonially coded term distinguishing them from women who had adopted Western-style dress — a designation Liberian women are documented as having spent more than a century reclaiming on their own terms. A 2026 government-facilitated initiative brought a Burkinabè technical delegation to Lofa County specifically to assess establishing a local textile production facility using local cotton and a newly designed large-scale weaving machine.
Risk level: Endangered · Not independently inscribed
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