Member-only story
Bound in Death
The fabric in the picture is called aso ini by the Ile Oluji people of South-Western Nigeria. It is a version of aso oke — the colourful loom-spun cotton fabrics traditionally worn by Yorubas for important events. The peculiar thing about aso ini is that it is only woven for the dead. It took my father’s passing to know this. At his burial, the weaver placed 3-parts of the customary 6-part weave in his coffin, and gave me the other 3 parts being his first son.
“This is your half,” the woman said. “The other half remains with your father into the afterlife. May your children do this for you too.”
And like that, I came into ownership of this curious piece.
What was aso ini? What spiritual significance did it have? Who were its weavers, and what were their untold stories?
In the flurry of activities that preceded my father’s burial, it didn’t occur to me to ask the weaver questions about aso ini’s origins. The burden of unprocessed grief, and the rapid undercurrents of customary rites that followed, left no room for inquisitiveness. From its name, aso ini, and the brief explanation I got from the weaver, I surmised that it is a cultural totem. Aso, means ‘cloth or fabric’ and…
