Bida glass (Bikini)

About

Since the mid-nineteenth century, reference had been made to glassmaking in Nupeland, particularly at Bida. This locally-made bikini is characteristically black and shiny. The earliest mention of a glassmaking community in Nupeland in historical sources came from Thomas Jefferson Bowen, an American Christian missionary, who wrote in 1856 that “the Nufes [Nupe] are allied by their language to the Yórubas…they are said to be the only people in Sudan who still retain the art of manufacturing glass.” He continues, “So far as I could ascertain, the peculiar glass manufacture of Central Africa is confined to three towns in Nufe, one of which is situated on the west of the Niger” (Bowen, 1857, p. 309). Leo Frobenius, a German explorer, and ethnologist, also mentioned Nupe glassmaking. In 1912, he wrote: “we have now reached the brook which divides our quarter of the town from the Massaga’s, the workers in glass” (Frobenius, 1913, p. 433). Similarly, anthropologist S. F. Nadel notes in the 1940s that “the Masagá nevertheless still produce their own glass as well. A certain type of glass, black in color and of rather crude texture, which is bought widely in Nigeria, is made exclusively by the traditional method” (Nadel, 1942, p. 274–5). René Gardi, the Swiss traveler and author, wrote in 1969 about the secrecy around making bikini glass: “Our friends in Bida willingly showed us their work techniques. We went in and out whenever we pleased. We photographed and filmed, but there was one thing they did not show us: the making of glass for their own use” (Gardi, 1969, p. 102). The Masagá use the word bikini interchangeably to refer to raw glass (cullet) and manufactured glass products.