Kuba Tcaka or Dance Skirt

A pale, olive-tinted strip scratched all over with tiny labyrinths.

This tcaka or dance skirt is Kuba, from Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is embroidered raffia. Because the cloth is built from separate squares, they can be separated and recombined into new compositions, then backed and hung on a wall much like a tapestry. Long narrow textile in pale straw with an olive cast, covered by dense interlaced lines and angular motifs. It is 28 inches wide and 158 long.

Dense with lines, yet somehow calm.