Melhfa

What is Melhfa?

The melhfa is one piece of cloth doing the work of many: veil, shawl and skirt together. Cut as a plain rectangle, roughly four and a half metres long and one and a half wide, it is wound around a woman from crown to ankle, covering head as well as shoulders. Cotton and other natural fabrics are the usual materials. The drape is deliberately loose, so air moves and the desert heat stays bearable, while the same sheet can turn back sand, sun and cold. Women wear it daily and keep grander versions for celebrations. Its name shifts with the map, from the Maghreb's melhfa to dampé, laffaya, toungou and tassaghnist farther along.

Where does Melhfa come from?

No birthplace is recorded; the wrap belongs to the whole Sahel-Sahara belt, and each people along it claims the cloth under its own word. The Maghreb name appears in sources spelled Melfha, melafa, meulfeu or mlahef, all for the same thing. Farther east, Sudan's toub, a close cousin, is said in popular belief to go back thousands of years and to have dressed Queen Kandaka, though that is legend rather than dated record. The newest chapter is recent: the wrap now appears on fashion-show runways and on well-known wearers, and newer versions carry modern touches aimed at younger women, so a cloth once prized mainly for shelter now also trades on style.

How is Melhfa made?

The base is simple: a natural fabric, most often cotton, cut as one long rectangle. The sources give two sizes, near four metres by one, or four and a half by one point six, so the exact cut varies. Because the cloth must cope with a climate of great heat and dryness, nothing about it is heavy or binding; airiness is the point, and the designs are chosen to withstand cold snaps, blowing sand and strong sun. Decoration is the newer layer. In the last few years, embroidery has spread across these wraps, run along the edges or set boldly on the main body, worked in bright thread and geometric shapes. That needlework is where the artisan's hand shows, the sources note. Looms and dyes go unrecorded here.

Colours, motifs and borders

Everyday pieces lean on drape rather than ornament. The decorative story of the moment is needlework: bright thread and geometric shapes laid along the borders or across the main surface of newer wraps. Colour can speak, too. In Sudan, the toub's shades are read as markers of a woman's stage in life and of the successive steps of a wedding, and each ethnic group keeps its own sense of what looks right. Even the rectangle's proportions are not fixed; one account gives four metres by one, another four and a half by one point six.

How Melhfa is worn

A woman winds the length around herself starting at the head, so one unbroken sheet falls from crown to feet; the sources describe it as roomy and airy. Local habits differ. In Ougala, Algeria, the cloth goes on like a peplos, the ancient Greek drape, over a shirt, and a belt holds it; some there also call it timelheft, and many treat it as one garment with the haik, differing mainly in colour and fabric. Songhai women complete the toungou with named headpieces, among them the goffa, sorgou-sorgou, hilo-hilo and Zumbu. Egypt's melaya leff, literally a wrapping sheet, is a near cousin.

When Melhfa is worn

Every wrap has its rank. Some melhfas are saved for festivals and big ceremonies; plainer ones handle chores and the daily round. In Sudan, toub colours track the stages of a wedding as well as the milestones of a woman's life, and each ethnic group favours its own palette. Among the Sahrawi, wearing one is bound up with ideas of modesty and respectability, and a woman without one may find her words discounted, though that pressure weakens or strengthens with the society she lives in.

Styles of Melhfa

The wrap changes its name almost at every border. The Maghreb says melhfa, spelled by different writers Melfha, melafa, meulfeu or mlahef. Mauritania and Mali say dampé. Lafaya or laffaya answers in northern Nigeria, Niger and Chad. The Songhai tongue says toungou, the Tuareg say tassaghnist, and Ougala adds timelheft. Kinship reaches farther: the haik is counted as one and the same cloth, merely in another colour or fabric, and Egypt's melaya leff sits in the same family of wraps. Current fashion keeps adding variants, as younger wearers bring modern taste to an old silhouette.

What Melhfa means

For Sahrawi women the wrap is a banner of identity, yet it draws argument too: critics read it as a cloth that can police women through expectations of modesty, respectability and sexuality, and a bare-headed woman risks finding that her words carry less weight. How hard that bites depends on where she lives, including whether the surrounding society is Muslim-majority. At the same time the garment has stepped into the limelight, walking fashion shows and worn by well-known names, and that visibility has drawn fresh attention to the culture and handwork behind it.

Questions people ask about Melhfa

Good reading and sources

• Melhfa on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data