Kanga

The Swahili language was first written with Arabic characters before colonial rulers engineered a standardized Roman form. This cloth illustrates the earliest decades of production when words were first added to kanga designs and artists still used Arabic writing. Men will make a gift or women will select and wear a kanga with phrases that communicate a grievance, fear, or other intention that would be difficult to express verbally in regular social circumstances. The message here is an example in its overt warning to a romantic rival.