Object Name: Wrapper

Artist: Osana, wife of John Bull

Culture: Kalabari peoples

Place of Origin: Buguma, Nigeria

Date/Era: Circa 1860

Medium/Materials: Cotton

Dimensions: L: 203.8 cm, W: 124.0 cm

Credit Line: Fowler Museum at UCLA. Purchased with Manus Funds.

Accession Number: X84.600

The Kalabari collect, display, and wear a wide variety of textiles, including many manufactured in Europe and Asia (see chapter 10 of this volume). Pelete bite, or “cut-thread” cloth, is created primarily by Kalabari women who painstakingly lift and snip threads in woven cloth iported from India to create intricate, openwork patterns.

Source: Anderson, Martha G. and Peek, Philip M. ed. (2002), Ways of the Rivers: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta, Los Angeles, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 6.

See also: Marla C. Berns, World Arts, Local Lives: The Collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, 2014.