Oyokoman
Named after the Oyoko clan, the royal clan of the Asantehene. Among the best-known designs.
Ghana-Net.com · Ashanti Region · Craft Villages
Every Asantehene has worn cloth woven here. Bonwire is the village that made kente famous: rows of men at narrow looms, strips no wider than a hand, and patterns whose names are proverbs. It is also where you will be pushed hardest to buy, and where the difference between a hand-woven cloth and a printed copy matters most. Here is how to see it properly.
Bonwire is a weaving town a short drive north-east of Kumasi, in the Ejisu area. For generations its weavers produced kente for the court of the Asantehene at Manhyia, and certain designs were reserved for royalty. The link between the village and the throne is the source of its reputation.
Today Bonwire is both a working weaving town and the place tour buses bring visitors to see kente made. Both are true at the same time, and a good visit means seeing past the second to the first.
The cloth itself: for the history and meaning of kente across Ghana, see Kente — the cloth that speaks in stories. This page is about the village.
Bonwire's own story of how kente began is told to every visitor. Two men of the village went hunting, saw a spider spinning its web, and went home to copy it in thread. The spider is Ananse, the trickster of Akan storytelling — so the cloth begins, fittingly, with a story.
The historical record is more complicated. Weaving on narrow strip looms is old across West Africa, and early kente is said to have been woven partly from imported silk, unravelled from European cloth bought on the coast and rewoven in local designs. What is clear is that under the Asante kings, and especially with royal patronage from Kumasi, kente became the most prestigious cloth in the forest kingdom — and Bonwire its best-known source.
Ask to try the loom. Most workshops will let you sit at a loom for a few minutes. You will understand the price better after two minutes of trying to keep the pattern straight.
Every kente design has a name, and many names are proverbs or comments on status, wealth or events.
Named after the Oyoko clan, the royal clan of the Asantehene. Among the best-known designs.
Roughly "all motifs used up" — a cloth so rich in designs that the weaver's skill is exhausted. A sign of wealth.
"It has never happened before" — a design for something new and unprecedented.
Names and meanings vary between weavers and families, and new designs are still invented and named today. Ask your weaver what the cloth in front of you is called and why — the answer is part of what you are buying.
This is the part most pages leave out. Bonwire is used to visitors, and visitors are used to being sold to.
Much of the "kente" sold across Ghana — and abroad — is printed fabric, often imported, with the pattern stamped on. Real kente is woven: you can see the separate strips and their seams, and the pattern is in the thread, visible on both sides.
A full hand-woven cloth is a serious purchase and takes weeks to make. Stoles, strips and small pieces are affordable. If a "full kente cloth" is cheap, it is not hand-woven.
Agree any guide fee before you start. Expect to be shown into a shop at the end; you are not obliged to buy, and a polite no is accepted more often than visitors think.
The best way to buy is to order from a named weaver, agree the design, size and price, pay a deposit and collect later. It is slower, and it is how Ghanaians buy their own.
Ask in Bonwire who invented kente and you will hear one answer. Ask in the Volta Region and you will hear another. The Ewe have their own long weaving tradition, centred on towns like Kpetoe and Agbozume, with their own designs, colours and history — and a festival, Agbamevo, to celebrate it.
The honest answer is that both traditions are old, both are Ghanaian, and they influenced each other. The rivalry is real, friendly most of the time, and part of the story.
Ewe kente on our Volta site: Kpetoe — the living heart of Ewe textile heritage and the Agbamevo festival. Kente's story for Ghana at 70: Kente cloth — history and meaning.
Roughly 20 kilometres north-east of the city. Allow 45 minutes to an hour each way by taxi, depending on Kumasi traffic. Agree a price for the round trip and waiting time.
Trotros run from Kumasi towards Bonwire and the Ejisu area. It works, but a hired taxi makes it easy to combine the craft villages in one day.
Weekday mornings, when the looms are busiest. Bonwire holds a kente festival; dates vary, so ask before planning around it.
Ask each weaver before photographing him at work. Some expect a small payment; buying something small is the friendliest way to say thank you.
A day that works: Bonwire in the morning, then Ntonso for adinkra and Ahwiaa for woodcarving on the way back into Kumasi. Hotels on ghanahotels.biz.
Kumasi craft-village tours usually combine Bonwire with Ntonso and Ahwiaa. Check what is included — and whether shop stops are built in.
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The object at the heart of the kingdom whose court Bonwire wove for.
The last traditional Asante shrine houses, near Bonwire around Ejisu.
The Queen Mother of Ejisu who led the war of 1900 — from the same district as Bonwire.
The palace of the Asantehenes — the court Bonwire's weavers served.
Base yourself in Kumasi. The symbols on the other great Asante cloth: Adinkra.
Bonwire is worth the trip — if you go to watch, ask and learn rather than just to shop. Sit at a loom, ask what a pattern is called, and if you buy, buy something woven, from the person who wove it. You will leave with less cloth than the tour bus, and a far better idea of what kente is.
Verified: 26 September 2026. Bonwire's association with the Asante court, the strip-loom technique, the Ananse origin story as told in the village, and the design names given follow standard accounts of Asante kente; meanings of designs vary between weavers. Travel times are approximate. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.