Bogolan, Orient Lights Bogolan is a textile design technique which originated in Mali. There traditional life has remained unchanged to this very day and its natives are well-known for being very skilled in traditional art. Bogolan are about 10 cm wide handwoven cotton strips with a coarse structure.
Men do the weaving.
Even though the basic colour will later be brown or black, the first dye is always yellow. Only then the 2nd dye begins. The colour brown is reached by using tree bark and black by using mud. Bogolan with a yellow base and black mud drawing originally stem from the Dogon area. The geometric drawing is either a free-hand drawing or applied to by template.