Meaning of pagne | Babel Free

Definitions

A length of wax-print fabric made in West Africa, worn as a single wrap or made into other clothing, and serving as a form of currency.

Equivalents

Examples

“In Senegal the local cloth currency, pagne, made of tama, or strips, was increasingly supplemented by French imported indigo-dyed cloth from India called guinee . The guinee was used as currency in lower Senegal. In upper Senegal it became a larger unit equivalent to a number⟳ of pagnes. The exchange⟳ rate between guinee, pagnes, and francs became more complicated from the 1830s as a result⟳ of excessive imports of guinees and francs.”

“If a woman wears her sister's pagne [cloth] to go and have⟳ sexual intercourse with a man, she has committed afodegbe. This happened to the wife of a sofo recently. She took her sister's pagne, went and stayed with her husband, and then took the pagne back to her sister. As her sister's husband [the husband of the woman who took the pagne] is a sofo, the vodu caught her sister [the woman whose pagne was taken] right away. She was ill.”

“When young girls are first learning how to wear⟳ a pagne, sometimes we sew straps onto the corners so the pagne can be tied and doesn't fall⟳ down if they don't wrap⟳ it right.”

“Pagne is part of the transfer⟳ of wealth from a prospective groom to his intended wife prior to marriage or the inheritance a woman leaves for her daughters.”

CEFR level