CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction

Culture is the way of life as well as a heritage that is being passed from one generation to the other. Among the countries of Africa, according to Kashim, (2011), “Nigeria has taken a prominent position when it comes to cultural heritage and creative art which are manifested in her diverse crafts”. The products of these indigenous craft have sufficiently served economic needs of the people in the local communities. Since the pre-colonial era, various members of distinct ethnic groups engage in a lot of traditional craft practices in the agrarian occupational engagement. Nigerian culture is very colourful especially when it comes to the textiles, it‟s a thing of pride for Nigerians. This study therefore, was motivated through the observations of the various traditional designs found on the artifacts of the Ham people of Kaduna state. These designs could be very suitable as motifs in batik method of fabric embellishment in textile design.

1.1 Background of Study

This study is concerned with artefacts, traditional designs and motifs of the Ham people of Kaduna State. Ogunduyile, (2011) observed that art has been noted to be the totality of all knowledge and values shared by a society. Creativity has been in existence right from the time of the ancient man; he used what he could find in his surrounding to solve his problems. Marvin and David, L. D wrote that human beings expressed themselves and told their stories in pictures long before they could read and write. They further explained that pictures on the walls of early cave dwellings are evidence of the human compulsion to describe the world in both representational and symbolic images. The Ham man is, therefore, not exempted in this story of the ancient man; he created and designed things with whatever he could find in his immediate environment. Development and industrialization of a country revolves around the modernization of the artefacts and crafts of the people. “The industrial development in a country involves considerable artefacts and crafts that develops in stages and which leads to a progressive growth” (Ajayi 2007). The use of these traditional designs is going a long way in saving the artefacts and crafts for the younger generation.

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