Bark cloth, or olubugo in Luganda, is a cloth made by beating the inner bark of the mutuba fig tree until it becomes a thin, soft sheet that dries to a rich terracotta colour. It is one of the oldest crafts in Africa, central to Buganda’s royal and ceremonial life, and was recognised by UNESCO in 2005 as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Today it is used in ceremonies, burial, fashion, art and home décor.

How bark cloth is made

During the wet season, the craftsman cuts around the trunk of a mature mutuba tree and peels off the inner bark in one large piece. The bark is softened, often by steaming over a fire, then laid on a log and beaten with wooden mallets, starting with a coarse grooved one and finishing with finer ones, until it forms a broad, even sheet. Left in the sun, it turns from cream to reddish-brown. The tree, wrapped in banana leaves, regrows its bark and can be harvested again.

Its place in Buganda culture

Bark cloth was traditionally made by specialist craftsmen, and a particular clan has long held the role of making cloth for the Kabaka. It was worn as everyday clothing before woven cotton spread in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it remains important at coronations, weddings, cultural ceremonies and especially funerals, where the dead are wrapped in it. At the Kasubi Tombs, bark cloth lines the royal burial house. See our guides to the Kasubi Tombs and the Buganda kingdom.

Seeing and buying bark cloth

Workshops in Mpigi district, south-west of Kampala on the road towards Masaka, demonstrate the process, and the Uganda Museum and craft shops in Kampala display and sell it. Modern designers use bark cloth for bags, hats, wall hangings and even fashion collections. Buy from makers or shops that can tell you where it was made, and keep it dry, as it is sensitive to moisture. See our guide to ethical craft shopping.

A Mpigi stop fits easily into the drive west towards the gorillas, where the permit costs US$800, or US$600 in April, May and November. See our guide to cultural sites in Uganda.

Frequently asked questions

Bark Cloth’s Material and Cultural Significance

Bark cloth — the textile made from the processed inner bark of the Mutuba fig tree (Ficus natalensis) — was declared a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008, specifically recognising the Buganda Kingdom’s bark cloth tradition as a practice of global cultural significance. The production process involves harvesting the inner bark from mature trees without killing them (the tree regenerates the bark for subsequent harvests), beating the bark into cloth with ribbed mallets, and dyeing the fabric with plant-based pigments to produce the ochre-brown colour that characterises authentic Buganda bark cloth. The material was the primary textile of the Buganda court and commoner dress before cotton cloth’s introduction in the colonial period; its current use in ceremonial contexts (coronations, funerals, cultural ceremonies) and as a craft material for contemporary design applications reflects the tradition’s adaptation from primary textile to cultural heritage object. Visitors who purchase bark cloth at community artisan stalls near Bwindi are buying a material whose production chain is the same as its description.

The Mutuba fig tree’s role in Buganda’s material culture extends beyond bark cloth into several other applications that the tree’s specific properties — the fast bark regeneration, the wide trunk diameter, the leaf shape suitable for food wrapping — make it useful for. The tree’s cultivation alongside the banana garden as a shade tree is traditional in Buganda’s agricultural landscape, and the oldest Mutuba trees near the bark cloth production centres of Masaka and Rakai are culturally significant objects in their own right — individuals whose bark has been harvested through multiple generations and whose physical scale marks them as witnesses to the centuries of cultural practice that the UNESCO recognition of bark cloth represents. The bark cloth artisan’s relationship with specific trees — maintained across decades of regular harvesting — is a form of agricultural care that creates a long-term investment in the land that the short-cycle cropping of food agriculture does not produce.