Ebu Dada: The Women Keeping the Ancient Pottery Crafts Alive in Kwara State

Kehinde, a 14-year-old secondary school student, eagerly kneads the mixed clay, savouring its softness beneath her fingers before shaping it. Each day after school, she goes to the local pottery to join her grandmother in creating clay pots.

Like every other woman in the factory, she is skilled at moulding wares from clay, showcasing a level of dexterity that reflects her years of experience. Standing beside the half-constructed pot, she expertly swirls to create intricate patterns on its exterior. Without a hint of exhaustion, Kehinde can engage in a continuous conversation while skillfully moulding clay.

Her grandmother explained to the reporter that an active mind and strength are key to expertly moulding Koko amó (clay pot). She attests to her skill in making pottery, claiming she makes no mistakes in her work. She stated in Yoruba, “Although all of them have the skills of making Koko amó(clay pot), and each has their own style of making pot, but she knows how to mould very well.”

Ebu Dada local Pottery

Crafting pottery is an intricate and time-consuming process that is physically demanding and draining. Yet, the women at Ebu Dada, ‘owners of clay’ as they called themselves, have a deep love for every step in the craft, as evidenced by their unwavering passion for the craft. 

Ebu Dada pottery is the largest traditional pottery workshop. It is famous for its unique art of keeping the handmade pottery alive. Apart from the dominance of artistry, the local factory is a mainstay of cultural preservation and tourism exploration, where individuals and groups converge to glimpse how women display creativity and resilience in making pottery.

Located on the outskirts of Ilorin, Kwara State, the pottery derives from the community’s name, ‘Dada Community,’ where over a hundred women skillfully turn clay into timeless, appealing art with their bare hands. Inside the local factory, old huts, some on the verge of collapsing, reside. The wide acre of land displays a uniformity of women and girls swaying their hands with strength in crafting various wares from clay.

Massive heaps of clay, various sizes of clay pots drying in the sun, stacks of finished pots awaiting buyers, and those still smouldering on the fire create a vibrant scene at the local pottery. Broken pots and sheds are scattered throughout, adding to the charm of this traditional artistry hub. At the centre of the pottery area is a secluded field where the pots are fired.

The pottery production process is physically demanding, involving labour-intensive tasks such as burning and casting designer pots.

Under the sweltering afternoon, Adama Saka, one of the old women pressing the clay into moulding shape, mentioned that making pottery was a skill she had inherited from her parents; therefore, it was only right that she took over it after their demise.

“This is the only skill I inherited from my parents; making Koko amó (clay pot) is a skill that has been passed down from our great-grandparents. It is what I know how to do best, and I have been doing it for many years”, she explained.

Her three children are equipped with pottery knowledge. Only one does not venture into pottery; the other two earn from making pottery alongside their mother in the same local factory.

They have water coolers (aamu), open-mouth bowls (ape), soup bowls (isaasun), fryers (agbada), pitchers (oru), traditional money safes or piggy banks (kolo), large dye pots (ikoko-aro), and large fermentation pots (ikoko-isa). 

An array of handcrafted pottery pieces meticulously arranged on top of one another, forming an impressive mosaic shape.

Pottery in Nigeria

Nigeria is a hub for various traditional crafts, such as pottery, textiles, woodcarving, weaving, and metalwork. The country’s craft pottery offers a unique tourism attraction for exploring the age-old craft, workshops, and cultural exchanges. Nigeria’s rich tapestry of local crafts and industries reflects its diverse cultural heritage and is a vital component of the economy. 

However, designs on pottery vary based on the purpose it is meant to serve and where it is made. One of the parts believed to be the largest pottery artistry is Ilorin, a city in Kwara state. Koko amó, as it is commonly called among Yoruba tribes, is popular for the uniqueness it upholds, the cultural identity it represents and the attributes of the divinity it venerates. 

Ralia Saka, a woman in her seventies who has been shrunken with hard work rather than age and the head of women at the local pottery, revealed that their skill is inherently their pride. It is a card they keep close to their chest, allowing no stranger to have knowledge of moulding except their lineage. “It is a gift and a worthy legacy from our progenitors,” she said.

She disclosed that pottery is mainly for  females of their lineage, adding, “Our mother, who passed down the craft, did not teach any male, not even her own sons.”

Daily Struggling at the local factory

As the women work their magic, they lose themselves in the joy and satisfaction of creating functional wares with their hands.

Despite the daily struggles, the local factory remains a vibrant hive of activities, a testament to the enduring spirit of creativity and resilience that has sustained the women potters for generations. The average day of pottery production starts with pounding dried clay before mixing other elements. For some women, however, it starts with continuing leftover work from the previous day. 

After being pounded to remove impurities and soaking for days, the soaked clay is mixed with ‘white sand’ called ‘wunyan’. It is said that pottery cannot be made without a mixture of wunyan. While clay is extracted from a digging well, ‘wunyan’ is excavated deeply after the clay. Therefore, local pottery can be moulded using clay, white sand, and water.

Mixing these elements requires a high level of expertise. If not mixed and kneaded properly, the mixture could result in a fragile lid or cracking of the lid during the firing process.

Next, the mixed clay is spread on a rigid moulding shape called ‘ide’ in Yoruba and pressed with timútimú, known as moulding stone, to straighten all over the surface of the moulding shape to replicate the shape of the pot.   

This serves as a preliminary step before drying the lid in the sun. Afterwards, it is polished with a piece of cloth to smooth and design it. This marks the semi-final steps in pottery making.

Then comes the final and essential process: firing the dried pot—a task many women admitted is not the easiest. The firing marks the completion of pottery, and this determines whether the pot will be in line for sale or not.

Checking and turning the lids inside the fire is necessary to avoid burning or cracking. Twisting her face due to the intensity of the firing smoke, Iya Hamza, a middle-aged woman working at the firing section, revealed that the firing stage is a mandated process that requires utmost care. Firing also hardens the clay, making it durable and usable.

“If care is not taken at this stage, the pots will burn or crack, wasting all our effort from the beginning. 

“After removing it from the fire, we pour sawdust all over the hot pot to darken it, and after that, we put it inside ómi lasa ‘red water’ so that the pot will emit a shiny surface,” she explains, as she turns her face away from the smoke rising from the open fire.

According to her, the pottery trail attracts a chain of strenuous activities. Women at the local pottery engage in daily struggles; their slim features are in no way comparable to their arduous tasks.

Low Financial Support

Despite embracing everyday struggles and the situation that comes with it, a challenge these women continue to battle is the lack of funds to drive their pottery business and make it flourish.

Even with the establishment of lucrative initiatives like the creative economy development fund, CEDF, a governmental initiative born to support Nigeria’s creativity and cultural artistry, and initiatives like Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, FMACTCE, these women only rely on their proceeds from pottery, which barely toll a little on them and their sustenance.

For many of these women, lack of access to funds means they continue to run their businesses on a small scale. Also, getting pottery ingredients like clay, white sand, red stone, dry grass, and other materials is exhausting and difficult.

As leader of the pottery community, Ralia solicited the government’s support to promote their work by helping them with funds to help their pottery business thrive.

According to her, lack of capital is a significant challenge in business, and she called on the government to aid them.

“Pottery making is a less profitable business; we are only doing it because it is what we met our parents did and passed to us, so it is a must to pass it on to our own children too, but we don’t have enough money. 

“All the materials and ingredients we use are now on high price, whereas, we used to get theme for free; we got clay wherever well is digging, cut grasses from farm (to fire pot) and we got  most of our materials from farmland, but now we are buying them with high price and extreme struggles because there is no more farm to get them for free,” she lamented. 

Patronage of Local wares

Production and patronage of locally made goods are crucial factors that can drive the country’s economy if properly harnessed. Despite the exerting stance in the local artwork, the overreliance on imported wares and products keeps abating the endeavour of local artists.

“Our customers come from different part of the country, we have from Abuja, Oyo, Benni, Osogbo, Akure, Edo, Lafiagi, Ibadan, Ogbomosho, and those who used to come and purchase in high bulk, although we still have those who patronize us, but it cannot be compared to the high patronage we used to get before,” Adama said.

Over the years, the spike in imported wares has declined, prompting a brisk move by the government to stimulate local products. The recent approval of Nigeria’s first policy, a stamping ban on foreign goods and services that can be produced locally. 

The approval aims to cushion the dominance of reliance on imported wares, stimulate domestic industries, promote local content, and reform procurement practices.

Keturah Ovio, a director at Patrons Modern and Contemporary African Art (MCAA), an art advisory and dealership firm, says that artists are not given sufficient attention in Nigeria. Some drop out due to a lack of patronage and support from the government and the consuming public.

“We need to consume our arts in Nigeria because it has a lot of benefits. Apart from being a big industry globally, it provides excitement and leisure and tells stories of history that can’t be engagingly told in written form,” she said as reported by The Business Day. 

Lamentation

The fluctuating rainfall affected their productivity, and women at the pottery workshop lamented how rain denied them enthusiasm for their work. 

During the rainy season, the women usually struggle because rainfall ruins pots that have yet to undergo firing and are still queuing for drying, turning their drip-sweating effort into vain.

“One of the challenges we face is rain, because we can’t fire any pottery ware until it’s dry, and firing cannot be done while raining,” Ralia Saka said.

She added that firing the pot is a difficult step that requires serious attention and extreme care to avoid breaking or cracking the pot. At the same time, firing is inevitable due to the high burning rate and spontaneous turning of the lid so that it will not get burnt.

“This is another problem in making pottery, this is one of the hardest problems because after undergoing all the difficult tasks of kneading, shaping and drying, the pot or others may crack while we are turning or moving it,  and this result us back to where we will have to pounded it back to raw clay and undergo another process,” she complained.

Interventions

In 2022, an electric borehole project was built for the women potters in Ebu Dada, under the reign of Governor Abdulrasaq Abdulrahman, and the cleansing of the mounting dumpsite in the local pottery, relieving the women of the swirling stench and aligning them with a healthy vicinity. For these women, it was a renewed hope and response to their daily struggle of getting water to do their work.

“The water is really an ease, because water used to be difficult for us; no small amount of water is needed for pottery, but with the electric borehole, we no longer suffer for water, we will just contribute within ourselves to buy fuel to pump water,” one of the women at the local pottery spewed.

Students of the University of Ilorin, a federally owned university in Kwara State, visited Ebu Dada pottery in 2024 to learn how local productivity could help them in their future field. The research group, led by a lecturer from the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, aimed to show how the basic engineering knowledge and skills acquired by students can impact their immediate environment.

After completing the research, the group honoured the pottery hub by building a modern system toilet, ending their defecation problem. “It is really appreciative work for the students and the lecturer to build us the toilet; we will remain grateful for it,” the woman beamed.

Expert weighs in

Nigeria’s art and craft have huge potential to grow and compete with those of its counterparts in most emerging and advanced economies.

However, the question of whether creativity, like pottery and other crafts, can accrue revenue for the country is an ongoing stance that economists encourage adopting.

According to Professor Segun Ajibola, Dean at Caleb University and Economist, the country must invest in art and craft as a revenue-generating source. He said, “One area still holds untapped potential for the Nigerian economy is arts and crafts.

“It is essential for the government to focus on this area among others in pursuit of its economic diversification agenda, and to enable the country to harness the benefits of employment opportunities, economic empowerment and boost revenue for the country.”

Stressing that local artistry requires funding to unleash the potential of the arts and crafts, he urged the government to intervene and renew interest in this field.

“Funding must be provided by all tiers of government in pursuit of a renewed interest in arts and crafts in Nigeria”, he concluded.