Clothes. Because of the hot climate in West Africa, some of its peoples dressed scantily. In the Zaghawa kingdom (in present-day eastern Chad and western Sudan) around the year 1000, most ordinary people were almost naked, covering themselves partially with skins and painting their bodies. At about the same time, the forest peoples of the area stretching from the modern nation of Gambia to the western part of present-day Liberia wove fabrics mainly from the leaves of the screw pine and raffia palm, or they made bark cloth by soaking the inner bark of trees and then beating it so that the fibers became interlaced and thinner. While early societies often wore only woven-grass or bark-cloth waistbands, they gradually adopted elaborate garments that covered much more of the body. This change in the daily dress of West Africans was influenced by...