Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

A chevron column sits boxed inside a black lattice, like a guest of honor.

This Shoowa prestige panel is Kuba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is piled raffia. Among the Kuba, raffia cloth long carried questions of rank, and panels like this were generally worn as skirts or given at ceremonies and funerals. Dense black zigzag chevrons fill the central block, framed on three sides by a lattice of black diagonal lines enclosing tan diamonds. Pink tinted cloth shows along the outer edge. The lattice is a separate section from the chevrons. It is 20 inches across and 21 long.

The lattice holds the chevrons in, though they look ready to march.