Annang Tee · Plate II · The Western Weave · Pre-Order (Ships ASAP)

Annang is the people of western Akwa Ibom, renowned for oratory and the raffia craft of Ikot Ekpene, the Raffia City. The plate draws the raffia weave itself as the survey grid. Navy shirt carries cream ink; white shirt carries deep survey navy.

Hero cut of Plate II from the Three Waters Collection. NINE PEOPLES · THREE WATERS.

History

The Annang hold the western uplands where Akwa Ibom meets the Igbo country, a people whose fame was built on the tongue and the hand: their orators (renowned as masters of uko iko, the art of speech) settled disputes across ethnic lines, and their weavers made Ikot Ekpene the Raffia City whose craft still carries the name. Governed through lineages and the Ekpo and Ekong societies rather than kings, the Annang also wrote themselves into national history in 1929, when the Women's War swept through Utu Etim Ekpo and Ikot Ekpene — Annang women confronting colonial taxation, and paying for it under colonial gunfire.