Côte d’Ivoire lies in the centre of a West African area, from Senegal to Cameroon, whose peoples produce narrow-strip weaving. While weavers may be female in some communities, they employ a different loom than men do. Typically, male weavers work on hand-operated looms, in a public place, creating narrow strips of cloth that can be attached to make larger pieces such as wrappers and furnishing fabrics. Fibres range from cotton, wool and silk to raffia.

Like their Guro neighbours, the Baule peoples adorned their weaving looms with carved heddle pulleys, five of which are seen here. Heddles manipulate the warp threads; they must be raised and lowered so the weaver can pass the shuttle carrying the weft, or horizontal, threads. The pulley’s function is to ease the heddles’ motion as they continuously move up and down. Usually human or animal, the carvings on the pulleys exist for the aesthetic enjoyment of the weaver; they have no ritual or other function. On the far left (M84-294), an oval female head sits on top of a long neck, which is adorned with a cord.