woven food cover, unrecorded Hausa-Fulani artist

Beverly Mack—professor emerita of African and African American Studies at KU—purchased this food cover in 1982 from a market in Kano, Nigeria, a major commercial city. Mat-making is one of Kano’s traditional industries. This woven food cover references mats made from natural plant fibers as well as plastic waste. Its design, with a blue, white, and green palette circling a central mirror, suggests representations of Earth.

Pot covers are commonly made of raffia (a plant fiber derived from palm leaves), but can also be made using materials such as plastic, and may incorporate other elements, such as mirrors and printed images. The object’s colors depend on the material used, ranging from synthetic or natural dyes to the bright colors of the plastic. Many of these pot covers were likely created using some form of coiling technique. Woven pot covers have a variety of uses depending on their materials and level of adornment. They can be used for the purpose their name implies: covering pots of food in order to protect it from bugs and debris. However, the more intricately decorated covers are also used for decoration and are frequently given as gifts. The covers displayed here were either given as gifts to or bought by Dr. Beverly Mack, Professor Emerita of African Studies at the University of Kansas, during her time living in and around Kano, the capital city of the Kano state in northern Nigeria, from 1979 to 1983. These covers were made by artists from the Hausa-Fulani culture. Pot covers like these play an important role in people’s everyday lives and visual culture, and beautify the presentation of food during Islamic religious holidays.

Written by Brenna Rulis