Abissa, Grand-Bassam

Creator

Diva

Summary

• This fabric commemorates Abissa, a cultural concept intersecting harvest, music, dance, and spiritual life of the N’zima people also known as Nzema in Grand-Bassam, Côte d'Ivoire. Abissa is popularly marked as a weeklong annual celebration in the last week of October as a festival of truthtelling, reconciliation, and rebirth. The fabric features a repeating crest which is surrounded by seven individual text blocks and seven images depicting the seven N’zima families (Allonhoba, N’vavile, Azanhoule, Adahonlin, Mafoule, N’djuaffou, and Ezohile) with corresponding cultural commodities in orange, yellow, coal, and black (a palm tree and gourd, a corn stalk with fruit, a yam, a soursop fruit, a shining bar and heap of gold coins, a wood fireplace, and a rice stalk). Two curved texts, Abissa and Grand-Bassam, appear above and beneath the crest respectively with the image of a lion carrying a gourd filled with the aforementioned assets on its head at the center and the text “Ko Etele” at its base. The fabric background is set in cream with repeating images of the Ashanti Golden Stool in purple. While the selvage of the fabric features Côte d'Ivoire alone repeatedly, this recurring stool suggests the connection of the N’zima people in the broader Akan group in Ghana where the Abissa festival is also celebrated with a strong presence of the N’zima group.