Abstract
It is a known fact that every culture has the responsibility of describing reality, its origin and models of structural development as well as the hidden knowledge and truth about being. This responsibility is evidently illustrated, addressed or depicted in Igbo paradigm in form of symbols. Devoid of these symbols, signs and images, the traditional life experiences of the Igbo’s will completely be void, abstract and meaningless because some of these symbols represented in tangible visible forms were believed to be real and living. This paper focuses towards understanding Aso-ebi cloth in the Igbo context through the examination of the dynamics of the cloth production, patronage, consumption and social significance of dress projecting high social solidarity and powerful cohesion in traditional Igbo paradigm. The proper underpinning of this social psychology of Aso-ebi cloth on the indigenous people of the Igbo’s will go a long way in the full integration of the Igbo people’s life and their immediate cultural ecology with messages it disseminate. It must be noted also that despite the significance of this integration, it must be informed that such is evidently limited in their transmission of reality. This paper investigates how the Aso-ebi clothe although an imported culture from the Yoruba tradition basically play significant roles in mediating and facilitating religious communication in Igbo Traditional Religion, giving rise to thought, interpretation, and symbolic meanings. In Igbo cosmology and leadership, the Aso-ebi fabrics encapsulate so many things which are very distinctive thereby representing so many things and ideologies.