The fabric of our other lives

The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) display titled: ‘Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India’ was historic for many reasons. Held between 15 July and 25 September, 2011, it was billed as the first exhibition of quilts, known as kawandi, by Siddis outside India. Nonetheless, the legacy of Siddis, who are South Asians of African descent, is little known in the subcontinent itself. In bringing kawandi to an international audience, the exhibit provides the opportunity to rethink Afro-Indian diasporic cultural heritage through the symbolic quilting together of these identities and their markers in the patchwork fabric.

Curated by Dr. Henry J. Dewal, Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Sarah K. Khan, Director of the Tasting Cultures Foundation, New York, the collection comprised of 32 quilts by members of Karnataka’s Siddi Women’s Quilting Cooperative, a non-profit. Siddis are as widespread as Balochistan, Pakistan and Junagadh, Gujarat. The collection at MoAD, however, came specifically from descendants of Africans enslaved by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and brought to Goa. Fleeing most notably during the Inquisition (1560-1812), the runaway slaves set up free communities in nearby Karnataka which still exist.

Goa’s relationship with Africa is generally associated with the British Empire. During its colonization by Portugal, Goa’s occupational scope was limited. As a result, Goans migrated from India Portuguesa to British India and, from there, to other colonies. British East Africa became a primary destination.

Selma Carvalho’s Into the Diaspora Wilderness (2010) notes that Goans ‘were unfailingly described by British Colonial officers as the back bone of the civil service ...’. Yet, within the colonial multiculturality of early twentieth century East Africa, the author points out that ‘[the] British relationship with Goans was as ambivalent as it was evolutionary. They subjected them to all the prejudice they felt towards non-White populations’. Even in their disdain, Carvalho argues, the British could not do without the Goans who ‘enjoyed their status as a distinct nationality in East Africa. It was almost a relief not to be called ‘bloody Indians’ or ‘coolies’. The special status Goans ‘enjoyed’ as second class citizens in East Africa, assumes a monolithically constructed ethnic group, with little said about their internal class and caste distinctions. The hardships of being displaced from their homeland as voluntary migrants, for the most part, were alleviated by the reputation accorded them. Carvalho represents these impressions of Goan East African identity as desirable, negating the community’s participation in colonial design, even as they were victims of it. The reprieve of not being ‘bloody Indians,’ it might be surmised, was a far second to not being considered the same as Africans. Carvalho concedes: ‘Whether any East African Goan ever shed a tear for the social unrest, poverty and turmoil of indigenous Africans is difficult to say.’ Into the Diaspora Wilderness indicates the pervasive and inherent racism of colonial projects, which even embittered the relationship within and between colonized groups.

Where Goans voluntarily took up employment in Africa under the British, Africans were enslaved and brought against their will by the Portuguese to Goa in the Early Modern period. Not entirely by coincidence, the East African coast was the destination for one of the aforementioned communities and the point of origination for the other. The first successful Portuguese navigation to the fabled Indies came with Vasco da Gama’s landing in Calicut on India’s west coast in 1498. Shortly thereafter, Portugal made Goa the capital of its Asian empire with the region’s conquest in 1510. Vasco da Gama’s own voyage to Asia would not have been possible without having gained knowledge in Africa of the routes taken by traders who plied an Afro-Asiatic trade well before Occidental contact with either location. The growth of Portugal’s imperial designs, which encompassed various locations, fuelled its demand for enslaved labour from such places as present-day Mozambique on Africa’s eastern coast. When Britain entered the colonial arena, Portugal saw its global power diminish. Goa became one of the last bastions of its erstwhile empire.

Because African slaves escaped persecution by fleeing to Karnataka, their presence as part of Goan history has become a dim memory. Even so, it would be myopic to believe that colonially-influenced prejudice and internalized racism do not play their part in who is deemed Goan. Often, when interraciality is acknowledged, it is to privilege whiteness; ironically, in the Luso-Asian encounter, miscegeny was highly limited. In the centuries of the African presence in Goa – a time span that parallels that of the European presence - there had to have been more than a little genetic exchange. It takes a certain suspension of disbelief to imagine the homogeneity of any ethnic group. Particularly with Goa’s position as a cultural and colonial gateway for more than five hundred years, any suggestion of ethnic purity would be nothing short of the highest fiction.

In her novel Skin (2001), Goan American author Margaret Mascarenhas takes up the subject of miscegeny, weaving together a tale that spans generations and continents. Pagan, the novel’s protagonist learns of her Goan family’s role in the slave trade from Esperança, an African-descended maid in her household:

... [S]hips were coming in and out of Goa, piled high with things the Europeans wanted from India and Africa, and things they had taught the Indians and Africans to want from them … The ships … from Goa’s harbours did … carry gold, as well as silks and spices. Portuguese merchant ships plying the route to the African colonies carried firearms for trade with the natives … [T]hey traded their weapons of destruction for diamonds, copper, ivory, gold and mostly … black gold … Which is to say, mostly slaves …

Pagan discovers the truth about her multiraciality as the novel progresses – She is cast as a living bridge between different sides of the history of colonization, not solely along the lines of colour but class, additionally. The materiality of the effects of colonization are exemplified in Pagan’s racial heritage and signified in the words her mother leaves her to read in a diary entry: ‘You see, there were stories within stories, myths, dreams, legends, skeletons in closets. Mothers and fathers who weren’t … A melting pot of histories, races, religions. People who owned people … Hearts that mattered, shattered, scattered.’

Skin artfully recalls many strands of Goanness, in all their painfulness and possibilities. Art’s ability to uplift everyday objects, such as quilts, urges a recognition of history and identity. Kawandi were not primarily created to hang in museums. They are purposeful in the most mundane ways. The use of bright colours rather than just being decorative, serves a visual function in living quarters with little light. Quilters from the cooperative are from rural areas with basic amenities. The women’s quilts are pieced together from garments such as saris and clothes children have outgrown. A 2004 quilt by Clara Cristos of Mainalli village assimilates the V-neckline and shoulders of shirts into its design. Rabia Bakarsahib of Gunjavati provided a 2005-06 quilt that appears to have small tears in it, but these are in fact the button-holes of repurposed shirts and blouses. Quilts may bear crescent-shaped ornamentation to signify the maker as a Muslim while the works of Catholics utilize cross motifs. Interestingly, Dumgi Bastav’s 2004 quilt from Mainalli bears both icons. What is common to all kawandi is that they are considered incomplete if not embellished at the corners with layered triangular pieces. These are called phula, which in Konkanni – spoken in Goa and Karnataka - means flowers. The adornment, incorporating the linguistic with the artistic, recalls the Siddi community’s past in Goa. In delivering the legacy of quilting from one generation to the next, Siddi women not only maintain cultural traditions but also the community’s history.

The cooperative provides women with the opportunity to sell quilts. They are then able to fund basic community projects. Despite being utilitarian, the aesthetic quality of the quilts cannot be eclipsed. Bibijan (Senior) of Kendalgiri manifests her artistry in the use of a single floral patch at the centre of her 2005-06 crib quilt, as it contrasts with otherwise solid-coloured fabric pieces. The use of seemingly random bits of cloth in kawandi is thought-provoking. Shanta Mingel’s 2005-06 crib quilt, made in Mainalli, has a patch with the word ‘Brazil’. Even if not deliberate, it connects the Portuguese legacy of African slavery in South Asia and South America. So also, the MoAD exhibit, in addition to highlighting Afro-Asiatic cultural heritage, serves to link various African diasporic communities. The United States, no stranger to slavery, has its own tradition of quilting. After the Civil War, an all-African American community of freed slaves was founded in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Quilts from the rural area are known for their distinctive patterns. Like the Siddis of Karnataka, the women of Gee’s Bend passed down their knowledge of quilting between generations. Quilts as diasporic and postcolonial fabrications, patch together identities and chronicle displacement. In this, they still leave space for further exploration of cultural legacies and the history of communities.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS.

* R. Benedito Ferrao was born in Kuwait, has family roots in East Africa and now lives in England.
* This article was first published by Awaaz Magazine.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.