Kuba Tcaka or Dance Skirt

A cream checkerboard of crosses, slashes and diamonds that never quite repeats itself.

This tcaka or dance skirt is Kuba, from Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is woven & piled raffia. The cloth is made from raffia palm leaves, which are gathered, dried, softened, dyed and stripped into fibers before being woven into panels and then embroidered. Wide horizontal panel in cream with squares of taupe and brown, each holding a bold black cross, diagonal bar, or lattice of crossed lines. Small zigzag blocks fill the ends, and the edges look softly frayed. It is 140 inches wide and 20.5 long.

Tic-tac-toe played by someone with a bigger board.