Month: October 2020

I ‘m not finished yet…

I wrote the poems below, ‘Gele vs The Gele’ as a response to a conversation I had with my supervisor about putting an article ‘the’ before Gele when referring to it in writing. We were talking about the discomfort I was experiencing when I put those words together and how they made it feel distant from self. 

Now picture this,

I was my mum’s fashion designer long before I actually got my degree “Sola come and help me pick which Gele to wear to Kunle’s wedding” My Uncle Kunle is getting married “From the guest room?”

“Yes”

I open the light brown wardrobe in the guest room and stare for ages What to pick? Stacks of Gele, all aso-oke on top and all brocade under arranged by pair by my mother, of course She always matches them- the gele and ipele together.

“Oya o Sola!! Bring the Gele now!”

I took two kinds to her “I brought two o, I’m not sure. The Gold one and the Green and Black one” Side by side we placed them together with the wrapper

Then we agreed

“The Green and Black Gele works better” “Oya return”, she hands me the Gold one “Thank you”

Seun, my older sister decides to tie Gele My uncle says “ah ahn, even Seun is wearing Gele” Admiring her style of dressing to his wedding.

Vs

As you can see in this picture, the woman is wearing the Gele

The Gele that the Yoruba people of Nigeria wear as traditional clothing.

//

“…Bring the Gele now!”

The Gele here because it is untied, it is not yet part of the woman but it is still not seen as completely foreign to the Yoruba woman’s experience hence, “Sola come and help me pick which Gele to wear to Kunle’s wedding”. The story of  Gele  in the wardrobe is different from the story of ‘the Gele’ as an object of spectatorship that is flattened to what it is in a context it does not belong to.

I wrote the poems below, ‘Gele vs The Gele’ as a response to a conversation I had with my supervisor about putting an article ‘the’ before Gele when referring to it in writing. We were talking about the discomfort I was experiencing when I put those words together and how they made it feel distant from self. 

Now, picture this,

You are at a party A Nigerian party It is loud, colourful and noisy A very lively atmosphere You walk up to me because you want rice I tell you “go and meet Iya alase to give you rice”  “Which one is Iya alase?” you ask because I have pointed to a group of 3 women dressed in the party dress code, lilac purple and locust beans brown. And I tell you “the lady on silver Gele”

Vs

Now, picture this, A group of art collectors have come together to curate an exhibition of ‘found objects’  The few they enjoy amongst all their priceless possessions They have laid the objects out on different sized tables, and different colours of plinths The ones they think suit the objects best A way to freely express And you get into the exhibit away from the noise, music and pleasant smell of wine You walk over to the side of the room on the right And under 5 different white lights is a long piece of cloth Just one colour It’s called ‘The Gele’ and it’s from West Africa

//

“the lady on silver Gele” The lady on silver Gele because she is putting on silver Gele. ‘To wọ silver Gele’- she is wearing silver Gele. Gele on the head is seen as whole. It is tied, it is full, it is Gele.

She is wearing the adornment. She is wearing Gele

It is now a part of her- not a separate thing.

March 23

In 2008, my family and I visited Nairobi, Kenya. I remember the trip quite clearly because my Dad was working there at the time and we went to see him and also because my twin and I turned 10 in the beautiful capital city, Nairobi.

On one of the days, my Dad took us- my sisters, my mum and myself- for breakfast and soon after, we were with Maasai. We were invited into their culture and they were really friendly. I don’t remember what we did that day with them but I remember posing for numerous pictures and I remember one of the Maasai women playing with my hair.  

In 2018, my sister and I went to the British Museum, London and we walked into the African Exhibit. There we saw, with many other stolen objects, a shield and spear of a Junior Maasai Hunter (Kisongo, Tanzania)- the spear taller than I was. But that was all I could see. Through the transparent box, rectangle, giant square, whatever you want to call it. My experience with these objects on British soil were different from my experience with meeting the Maasai on Kenyan soil- and I am slightly cautious as I write this because Kenyan Maasai ight have slightly different practices from Tanzanian Maasai but, the point still stays the same, the livelihood of the Maasai people was completely erased by the glass box. In fact, I don’t remember them having weapons on them or close to us when we came to visit- they were quite hospitable and I’m sure they looked at us children like we were theirs.

But the only thing I could see through the glass barrier as I stared at the shield and spear in their faces was how equipped Junior Masai hunters were and I could sense that they were agile and fit- which is not a bad observation but, it is only half of the story. The other narrative however that I just told you that I experienced in 2008 doesn’t even show up. What is problematic is not that half the story was told but, half the story was presented as the full one.

If you still don’t understand, get this:

Akii pe e leru ka pe e losoo

One does not call it a burden and also call it an adornment

The thief can never know and experience the value of a stolen object like the owner does.

A foreigner can never know and experience the value of an object that is not theirs.

All they will present to you is what they think it is. 

This is the half truth and when presented as the whole truth, it becomes a stereotype

It is misleading.

It is not the duty of the foreigner to tell someone else’s story.

Even as a fellow African, I cannot tell you that what I experienced with the Maasai is the entirety of their culture because I am Nigerian- not Kenyan or Tanzanian  and even more specifically, I do not belong to the Maasai people. I do not feel obliged; I do not feel a pressing need to tell you their story because it is not mine. And this, I feel like the majority of Africans in general get and people who belong to so called ‘marginalised’ groups- they understand. But, it is something Westerners, from my experience and in my opinion, don’t seem to get especially spaces like the British Museum.

Why? 

When you are used to stealing, stealing is all you know.

Abete le ni n foju oni daajo

It is bribery that blinds a judge

Afoju ajanaku, ko mo igi, ko mo eyaan

A blind elephant does not know a man from a tree

Stealing will blind you to reality.

I embarked on the project ‘My Mother Taught me to tie Gele’ because I wanted to explore how multifaceted culture is. I had been reflecting on my own cultural heritage and I was drawing on how culture back home is reflective of how many different ethnic groups can exist under the name ‘Nigerian’. Now this goes against the perception people often have of ‘Africa’ [to speak quite generally].

In Nigeria there are over 250 ethnic groups and over 500 languages alone and that to me already depicts its ‘bigness’, not to talk of other African countries. I really wanted to depict this visually so I made a map of my life so far (i’m not that old…in fact i’m not old at all)… and I circled back on a ‘ritual’ I used to do as a young girl- play dress up. Not just with any piece of cloth but with Gele. Gele is a long piece of fabric Yoruba women tie on their heads- it is part of our cultural wear.

I realised that the fact that Gele untied is a reasonably lengthy piece of cloth, I could use it to show how multifaceted culture can be. If you were at a Yoruba wedding, you will come in contact with a lot of women with all their interpretations of how their Gele should sit on their heads but the diverse thing about the adornment is that the variety of the styles don’t make them any less Nigerian- they all still fall under ‘being Yoruba’.

So diversity in that sense is popular and should be celebrated as is.

As I tied my Gele each time, a new visual picture of how else it can be tied popped in my mind [refer to my previous post] and although some of these styles may be considered ‘extra’ by a vast majority of Yoruba women, the styles still speak to what Gele is and can be.

March 6, 2020

My mother taught me to tie  Gele
“Fold it in front first, a little less than halfway
And place it firm on your forehead
Make sure it covers your ears”

My mother taught me to tie Gele
“Take both ends behind your head
Cross them over
And hold them firmly sideways”

My mother taught me to tie Gele
“Take one of the ends first and lay it across your head to meet the other end you are holding
Now do the same for the other”

My mother taught me to tie Gele
“Hold whatever is left in the middle of both ends and knot them behind your head
Tie it twice otherwise it’ll fall off”

My mother taught me to tie Gele
“Now adjust your Gele to the shape you want.”

My mother taught me to tie Gele
Funny enough I’ve taught other ladies to tie it too
She passed down the knowledge to me
Which I passed down to other people already
Which I will pass down to my girl children

Gele is so different
It’s sturdy, bold and noisy
New ones are always difficult to tie but after tied a few times, it softens and becomes more friendly.
Gele has different personalities
I realise that even more so now as I embarked on this project
My mother taught me to tie Gele
But the lessons I received opened up opportunities to see that although, Gele is referred to as just one piece of fabric
So much can be done with it
Wealth of knowledge for knowledge given
My mother taught me to tie Gele
This is what I have gained.