The Yoruba are the first practitioners of pattern-dyeing,which they called ADIRE. There are several techniques, but all are based on the same principle of reservation of certain areas of the cloth from the dye, so that pattern is seen in white or in lighter blue on the dark background. The reservation may be effected by tying up parts of the cloth with raffia,string or thread small stones or sees into it, by the resist method,in which cassava starch is painted on the cloth either Freehand or through stencils (originally of leather, then zinc, and nowadays of tin). The main centers of Adire dyeing are at Osogbo, Abeokuta, and Ibadan, but it is practiced almost universally by the Yoruba where they are found in West Africa, especially in Sierra-Leone and Senegal.
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