Context (Field collection)
Collected during fieldwork in the 1980s by Dr Goody Esther, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Small bag of cotton ready for carding and spinning.
Event Date 7/6/1988
Author: maa

Context (Related Documents)
Black and white photograph attached to rear of catalogue card
Event Date 2005
Author: rachel hand

Context (Display)
Exhibited in Talking Textiles, a display in the Maudslay Gallery to celebrate the year of Africa 2005 and curated by the Textile Project team.
Captioned: 'Tools for textiles. This case contains examples of the type of equipment used to make the kente cloths shown in the tall case behind you. These tools and materials were collected during fieldwork in the 1980s by Dr. Esther Goody, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge Department of Social Anthropology. They come from Gonja, a region of Ghana.

Cotton D 1988.348, D 1988.350, D 1988.35 [possibly should read 1988.349]
Cotton fibres come from seed-heads known as bolls. To left are bolls of unprepared cotton and on the right are samples of cotton fibres which have been prepared for spinning. Cotton is prepared and spun by women. The first stage is ginning - separating the seeds from the fibres by rolling them with a rod on a stone or wooden block. The second stage is to loosen the fibres by plucking them with a bow or combing them.'

Event Date 2005
Author: rachel hand