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Bògòlanfini:
“The dye technique is associated with several Malian ethnic groups, but the Bamana version has become best known outside Mali. In the Bambara language, the word bògòlanfini is a composite of bɔgɔ, meaning “earth” or “mud”; lan, meaning “with” or “by means of”; and fini, meaning “cloth”. Although usually translated as “mud cloth,” bògòlan actually refers to slip clay with a high iron content.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B2g%C3%B2lanfini
When someone looks at <Gbansabla ban bei> America (Blacks from America) Quilting, one could rightfully suggest, and or establish evidence of cultural retention with traditional <Bògòlanfini> (with many traditional African techniques and material as well). The intricate patterns, details, and even purpose seems to be of a deep ancestral influence for <Gbansabla ban bei> Quilting. From the Journal of American folklore, there is a paper written entitled “Representations of African American Quiltmaking: From Omission to High Art” and it states ..”The other development that set the stage for the theme of “separation from mainstream quiltmaking” was the growing recognition among scholars that an African heritage had influenced not just African American music, dance, religious and magical beliefs, and oral traditions, as Herskovits had proposed, but material art forms as well (Herskovits 1941:111, 136-7). In an important article that argued this point, art historian Robert Farris Thompson noted that the Smithsonian Institution had recently acquired an African American quilt that had similarities to “the chiefly textiles of Dahomey in West Africa” ( [1969] 1983:58). Soon after, Chase (1971) mentioned applique traditions in early Egypt, Europe, and Dahomey in her discussion of slave quiltmaking, Fry (1976) included a section on “African Continuity” in her article on the Powers quilts (one of which was the quilt Thompson had mentioned), white folklorist Mary Twining ( 1977) included quilts in her doctoral dissertation on African retentions in the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands, and Vlach used the notion of an African aesthetic to interpret quilts in his 1978 exhibit catalogue.” (Klassen, 2009). My suggestion is that those of our people in america that are still deeply in the quilting tradition to share the symbols we used during chattel slavery to communicate, sustain our sanity..etc with our brothas and sistas in Africa so that these symbols can be added to the <Bògòlanfini> tradition in order for <Gbansabla> (Blacks) in the diaspora to wear traditional clothes with appropriate ancestrally influenced symbology/patterning on it.
A great reference to look at for Quilting tradition is the “Freedom Quilting Bee”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Quilting_Bee
Links if you want to know more about African american Quilting:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40390070
https://anacostia.si.edu/collection/spotlight/african-american-quilts
https://aaregistry.org/story/black-history-and-quilting-a-brief-story/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.artshelp.com/the-stories-behind-african-american-quilts/amp/
Drop the specific name for this technique/material/symbols.. etc in your African Language in the comments such as Nsibidi, Adinkra, medu neter… etc
2 images on the left are Bogolanfini
The top right is designs used on traditional structures
The bottom right is a sampler of <Kmtwy> quilting in america
