Talk:Head tie

This page could do with further cleanups and information, including the creation of a disambiguation page for Duku (which is currently a redirection page to a plant https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Duku&redirect=no) and redirection pages for some of the other terms mentioned in the article.

It's interesting that some of the words in various African languages are so similar to Afrikaans, but I've been unable to find any definitive link between the two, the original Dutch word apparently meaning "cloth".

I have no specialist knowledge on the topic, but got reading after being led to look up Doek on Wikipedia from a document I was editing. Genmel (talk) 08:10, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:58, 31 October 2017 (UTC) called Ichafu or Gele(Nigeria) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.70.228.213 (talk) 11:29, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

African American history erasure

I'm concerned that certain editors are trying to erase or distort the history of American Descendants of chattel Slavery. I would appreciate if someone encouraged them to refrain from showing their bigotry. ADOS Pride (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello ADOS Pride, no one is trying to erase or distort the history here. Other users are simply ensuring that content added/changed in articles can be verified with reliable sources. Rather than edit-warring by adding content with random references, you should discuss your desired changes here first. Remember Wikipedia is a community project, and consensus is a key aspect of editorial decision making here. – NJD-DE (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

But, you left in the source and solely removed reference to African American/ADOS. At any rate, I added 2 additional sources, one from a well known African American periodical. ADOS Pride (talk) 21:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I am not able to follow, ADOS Pride. Quoting one of the sources you added: "Head wraps and headdresses continue to be popular and worn by Black women to this day". This does not refer to African American women specifically. – NJD-DE (talk) 21:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

References

You know African American women are Black, right? ADOS Pride (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

What's you point? M.Bitton (talk) 21:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I added the clarification to the noticeboard. I find amazing that you don't know or understand US racial or ethnic designations, and are making edits and CREATING edit wars out of your own ignorance. ADOS Pride (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Just as clarification: It's not M.Bitton who's edit warring here. There's multiple editors who agree with reverting your edits.

Also I find your message very interesting, as just two lines above your logic was that only African American women would be Black women. Which I thought was ignorant, but what do I know. – NJD-DE (talk) 22:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Islam is missing, Yet the most common users

The most people who do this are Muslims. Ilhan Omar etc, yet no mention of Islam in the entire article. Inayity (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Deetailz and self published sources, unscholar " sources " and inaccessible sources

@Deetailz

Hello, this your "source" here is a self published fictional poem : Umebinyuo, I. (2020). "The power of owning and centring our stories". Agenda. 34 (3): 8. doi:10.1080/10130950.2020.1788250. Your sources are not only hard to access / unaccessable, it includes what isn't used as sources here.Dolpina (talk) 17:06, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

The source you are describing as "self piblished" is a peer-reviewed academic article published in ''Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity'', Volume 34, Issue 3, 2020 piblished by Taylor & Francis (Rutledge). It has a Crossref DOI: doi:10.1080/10130950.2020.1788250 which you can verify independently.

Taylor & Francis is one of the largest and most respected academic publishers in the world. The journal has been a peer-reviewed journal since its establishment in 1987, and is indexed on JSTOR, with ISSN 1013-0950 (print) and 2158-978x(Online). THIS IS NOT A SELF-PUBLISHED CONTENT. This meets and exceeds Wikipedia's reliable source criteria per WP:RS.

The article by Umebinyuo(2020) is an autoethnographic work, which is a recognized and legitimate qualitative research paradigm widely used in feminist and cultural studies scholarship. It is published in a peer-reviewed journal precisely because it meets academic standards. I will not be going into details on research methods and epistemology here. But calling a Taylor & Francis peer-reviewed article "self-published" and "fictional" is definitely comical and FACTUALLY INCORRECT. Please, take some time to review WP:RS before making unfounded claims and challenges to sources.

Per accessibility, need I remind you that Wikipedia's verifiability policy WP:V states that "verifiability does not require that all material to be freely accessible online." The standard is that sources can be verified, not that they are freely available to every editor. Academic journals published by Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, and othe major publishers are behind paywalls as a matter of standard academic publishing practice. This is applies to millions of legitimate Wikipedia citations across the encyclopedia.

The existence of DOI means that any editor with institutional access, available freely through public libraries, can verify these sources. Inaccessibility to one particular editor IS NOT grounds for removing well-cited peer-reviewed content per WP:PAYWALL.

@Dolpina Deetailz (talk) 18:14, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Calling 3rd party here for this....

@Gnomingstuff @Blue-Sonnet @Oramfe @Kowal2701 Dolpina (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

The sources all appear to support the content and be reliable for it, though I can't access the final one used. @Dolpina, in case you didn't know, you can use WP:TWL to access most journal articles Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 20:29, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. The first source I'm seeing is a poetry, which I commented on, which isnt even the right source for this. Idk if this is the same page but the issue of the newly added unsourced Gele images on wikicommons being linked to "ichafu" is another issue. Many images have been deleted but a repetition happens. The ichafu article was salted and deleted, so these accounts are using different means for a work around. I don't know the rules about that or who to inform actually. There is also issue with self published work. I will try and access the ones I can't. Dolpina (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

also aside from the sources saying what they say

A good Wikipedia source is usually: Dolpina (talk) 22:32, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much Kowal. There are more books, articles, and reputable nigerian media outlets to back up the Ichafu claims. Specifically, Nwigwe holds a doctorate degree in fine and applied arts, and is affiliated with the University 9f Nigeria Nsukka. His works including this one are on his google scholar page.

Again, I appreciate your input on this. Deetailz (talk) 02:47, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure why I'm pinged on this. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

sorry i pinged whatever Wikipedia users I last stored from my interactions in similar topics as a 3rd party. Dolpina (talk) 22:06, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

reviewing sources. I'm sorry but Maureen Ndu-Udeji, student from the department of English won't cut it as a source. Ichafu is mentioned, but she doesnt quote anything for it. Should we take her as the scholar or researcher to base this claim on? This falls into self publishing amd original research territory. Maureen Ndu could have well taken it off tiktok. At what value are we to assign this then as a claim for "big head tie ichafu"? I don't think every student submission is valid source. Dolpina (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello, sorry to bother you, but you may be an interested 3rd party in the quality of sources

@Athanelar

I want to see if I can get 3rd parties to chime in whether or not involved with the topic, before getting official 3rd party input or report. Dolpina (talk) 23:32, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I want to first thank everyone who has spared their time to chime in on this topic.

Moving forward, @Dolpina the FALSE claim that Ndu Udeji is a student is INCORRECT. For your reading pleasure, Ndu-Udeji holds a doctorate degree in film studies and is a lecturer at Madonna University Nigeria with a verified institutional email. Her work is published in a faculty peer-reviewed journal and has been cited by subsequent academic works. Attacking her without basis is nearing WP:NPA.

Umebinyuo (2020)'s article opens with a poem, yes, she is renowned poet. This article is, again, published in a peer-reviewed journal. The Ichafu reference appears in the prose body where she said: "I watched my mom tie her red Ichafu, her wrapper." The source is valid for the specific claim that it supports.

Also labeling photographs of Igbo women in Icahfu as gele is factually incorrect. Ichafu is a documented Igbo cultural artefact, as shown in the multiple independent peer-reviewed sources. You can see images of Ichafu in many of them. There are even other peerreviewed papers and reputable Nigerian news media outlets who only differentiate them by just local names. That aside, the existence of superficially similar artefact in other cultures does not erase or subsume the distinct cultural practice other people. The Ichafu is documented as a large head tie, usually requiring assistance to tie, and worn among Igbowomen at traditional ceremonies.

Nwigwe and Morgan explicitly states: Igbo women, especially during some special occasions, tie headgears (Ichafu) that complement their blouses and wrappers. Tying certain Ichafu could be quite laborious and might require the assistance 9f another person for a satisfactory design.

At this point, continuing to challenge well-sourced content without new evidence borders WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I would encourage moving forward to constructive edits. Because you reverted another well-cited article on Ogbono page (see your edit history here) citing formatting issues. Which again is not policy grounds to revert an entire article supported by multiple independent peer-reviewed sources. This raises concerns under WP:TENDENTIOUS Deetailz (talk) 01:53, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Adding more details to my points above. Ichafu has been documented beyond peer-reviewed academic articles to include mainstream published books by globally recognized Igbo individuals.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Style and Substance (ed. Bay Garnett, 2023, ISBN 9781399812467), a piece originally published in US Elle, writes of her Igbo Mother: "She folded and twisted and pinned her Ichafu until it sat on her hewd like a large flower." This, again, independently corroborates the laborious process documented by Nwigwe and Morgan (2013).

Uzo Aduba, Nigerian-American actress, in her memoir The Road is Good (2024, ISBN 9781529382303) also references the Ichafu as part of Igbo women’s traditional dress where she describes her aunt as arriving with "her beautiful hair poured into a matching Ichafu." These two accounts are publisjed by major international publishers and are reliable sources under WP:RS Deetailz (talk) 03:23, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

the Ndu fellow has no references cited to the ichafu claim as a big head tie in the write up. He just wrote that. The writeup's main content isn't even about "Ichafu" but of something else, again, no source for the claim there, irregardless of who that person is. Uzo Aduba's 2024 memoir is also not a scholarly source. There are many documented sources however that shows ichafu as a loan word from English into Igbo, meaning a scarf cloth worn around the head or neck. It can be anything worn in those part of the body. I will need better sources for it being a distinct cultural garb that somehow are images of Gele. That is original research. This is one of the reasons why that Ichafu article got deleted and salted. I'm contesting the bypass attempt except I see strong sources. Dolpina (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I am reverting the edits of 12 June 2026 and will be filing at WP:ANI and WP:NPOV/N.

I will address every claim made in this discussion in full for the record.

The claim that Ndu-Udeji has no reference for ichafu as a big head tie is FACTUALLY INCORRECT. You have been assisted with alternative ways to verify information on this talk page, yet you have refused to use them. The paper states on page 69, the exact page cited, "a big head tie known as 'Ichafu'." These are the author's exact words in a peer-reviewed journal. Also, Dr. Maureen Ndu-Udeji holds a doctorate in film studies and is a verified lecturer at Madonna University Nigeria with an institutional email at madonnauniversity.edu.ng. Her Google Scholar profile confirms multiple published peer-reviewed works. That you reduced her to a student who "could have taken it off TikTok" is a baseless personal attack on a credentialed academic in direct violation of WP:NPA

The claim that ichafu is a loan word from English into Igbo meaning a generic scarf is a new unsourced claim that requires verification per WP:V. No source has been provided. The claim is linguistically unsupportable. The word comes from the Igbo verbal construction "i chi a fụọ isi" meaning to wrap around the head, a standard Igbo morphology with a nominalizing prefix and identifiable Igbo verbal roots. A real English loanword into Igbo would NOT restructure into a prefixed Igbo verbal nominal. Adding also that the 1923 Church Missionary Society institutional dictionary archived on HathiTrust lists ichàfù-ísí specifically under "head-"dress" which predates any plausible English loanword argument by over a century.

These sources and more support "ichafu" as a documented head tie, headgear and head-dress include:

• Dictionary of Ibo Language: English-Ibo (1923). Church Missionary Society Bookshop, Lagos. HathiTrust. Lists "Head-dress" with ichàfù-ísí as direct Igbo equivalent.
• Ozah, M.A. (2010). Cambridge University. Press. Yearbook for Traditional Music. Vol. 42 pp. 21-40. JSTOR 41201378. Cited by 13.
• Ndu-Udeji, M. (2021). Madonna University International Journal of Education and Arts. Vol. 1 No. 3. p. 69. Cited by 2.
• Nwigwe & Morgan (2013). IKENGA: International Journal of Institute of African Studies. p. 505. Cited by 3.
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (2023). Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781399812467. Originally published in US Elle.
• Aduba, Uzo (2024). Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781529382303.

Every single one of these sources explicitly uses the terms head tie, headgear or head-dress in reference to ichafu. Not one describes it as a generic scarf or loan word.

You sure do have inconsistent sourcing standard: Dispute tags marked [better source needed] and [independent source needed] were added to content supported by Cambridge University Press and Hodder & Stoughton while nkọwaokwu.com was simultaneously added without challenge. The Echeruo source was added to support a claim that ichafu means "anything tied on the head or neck. " Echeruo does not state this in relation to ichafu. Adding a source that does not support the claim it is attached to violates WP:VERIFY.

On Uzo Aduba's memoir: WP:RS does not require all sources to be scholarly. Published books from major publishers are explicitly accepted as reliable sources and that INCLUDES memoirs and autoethnography suitable for firsthand descriptions, personal experiences, or cultural descriptions from lived experience. Continuing to double down and neglect this is also downplaying Wikipedia's own policy at the expense of your personal conviction. Hodder & Stoughton is one of the largest publishing houses in the world. Dismissing it as not scholarly while adding a website as a source is not a very consistent application of WP:RS.

Related to the above and in more details, some of the cited authors have been personally attacked or dismissed without basis:

1. Ijeoma Umebinyuo, whose article "The power of owning and centring our stories" is published in Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, a peer-reviewed journal with a DOI (10.1080/10130950.2020.1788250), was dismissed as fictional and self-published. This is factually false. The work is indexed with a DOI in a peer-reviewed feminist studies journal.
2. Dr. Maureen Ndu-Udeji, a doctorate holder and verified lecturer at Madonna University Nigeria with institutional email at madonna university.edu.ng and multiple peer-reviewed published works confirmed on Google Scholar, was, again, described as a student who "could have taken it off TikTok." This is a baseless personal attack on a credentialed academic and a textbook violation of WP:NPA
3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Uzo Aduba, both published by Hodder & Stoughton, were tagged as [independent source needed] and dismissed on the grounds that "a memoir won't cut it." WP:RS explicitly accepts published books from reputable publishers as reliable sources. Again, A MEMOIR DOES IN FACT CUT IT. Memoirs are better suited for firsthand cultural descriptions from lived experience. Hodder & Stoughton is one of the largest publishing houses in the world. The [independent source needed] tag on a Hodder & Stoughton publication is not a consistent application of WP:RS.

The images in question show Igbo women in their traditional attire, the ichafu isi head tie, double wrapper, blouse and accompanying accessories such as akupe and coral beads. This attire is described in precise detail across multiple independent peer-reviewed sources already cited in this article. Ndu-Udeji (2021) describes "a blouse, a double wrapper, a red coral bead necklace and a big head tie known as 'Ichafu'." Nwigwe & Morgan (2013) explicitly identifies ichafu as the headgear worn by Igbo women with their blouses and wrappers. Ozah (2010), Cambridge University Press, identifies headgear locally called ichafu isi as part of this same traditional dress.

Relabelling photographs of Igbo women in this fully documented traditional attire as gele without a single reliable source making that specific identification is original research per WP:OR. It is also factually INCORRECT. Under same breath, describing ichafu as a simple generic scarf using nkọwaokwu.com while tagging Cambridge University Press and Hodder & Stoughton sources as insufficient is not a consistent or neutral application of WP:RS. The peer-reviewed literature is unambiguous. These are Igbo women in their traditional cultural attire. The documentation is extensive, independent and spans over a century.

The Ichafu article was deleted on AI/LLM generated content grounds per Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/ Noticeboard, not on sourcing or notability grounds. In fact, this deletion has no bearing on whether ichafu is a documented cultural artefact with reliable sources. The sources exist independently of any AI generated content.

You even invited @Kowal2701, an independent editor and they confirmed on this talk page: "The sources all appear to support the content and be reliable for it." You still doubled down after this independent confirmation in violation of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

You have same pattern of reverting, tagging and challenging well-sourced content has occurred across multiple articles including Ogbono soup, Akwete cloth, Igbo culture, Biafra, Aro Confederacy, Wrapper (clothing), Headscarf and Ogiri, all which are related to a specific group. MULTIPLE Wikimedia Commons deletion requests have been filed for images documenting traditional cultural attire. I have literally lost count. You even have a draft article on your page on (Igbo Coup), an artcle with possibility of introducing a contentious political framing of a specific ethnic group's history. This pattern across numerous articles constitutes tendentious editing per WP:TENDENTIOUS.

I am filing at WP:ANI and WP:NPOV/N immediately.

Again, I want to thank the editors here for your time. I may be tagging you on some of these noticeboards.

Thank you. Deetailz (talk) 16:38, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

On the new changes as of this version

This head tie article only had 1 head tie listed at the top per country despite there obviously being hundreds of tribes in each country, this was simply it's format, however this was altered with a sourceless addition here, by Kraytus, an editor who has been warned twice about violating Manual of Style, who on one occasion violated manual of style make a dedicated section for the Ichafu on another page. The only headtie recognised as the “national” headtie for nigeria is the Gele, which I cite here using two reliable sources. Note that Igbo and hausa head ties are still spoken about in the article itself.

Per WP:RS editors are to use their judgement to draw the line between usable and inappropriate sources, the sourcing used on both the gele and the ichafu in the headtie article had many blogs as their source, these often conflict and are far less reliable than publications with peer review, or professional encyclopaedias. And even those must be fact checked for their sourcing.
Per WP:BESTSOURCES, the reliable sources I used to replace many of these blogs contain detailed information about the topic of headwear specifically, with sections dedicated to the items in question by people knowledgeable in the a relevant fields. Namely:

• Crowning Achievements: African Arts of Dressing the Head
• Ethnic Dress in the United States: A Cultural Encyclopedia
• Sartorial insurgencies: Rebel women, headwraps and the revolutionary Black Atlantic
• African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance

and a few others.

To show an example of how unreliabile those prior blogs were, in the 2025 premiumtimes article that I removed with other yoruba related blogs, the Igbo author Uwaezu Kanu talks about an Igbo wedding that took place in lagos. She calls the head ties in the blog Ichafu, however, if you look at what she calls a silver Ichafu (last image), this was specifically known as the “Knot Ruffled Gele", which alongside its actual design origin, was documented 3 years earlier in an academic publication on the contemporary Gele.
This undisclosed mimicry of the Gele by authors with a modern conflict of cultural interest poses a clear problem as far is reliable sourcing is concerned.
Going through the academic sources listed for the ichafu, they proved unreliable the same reason with a couple of WP:RSCONTEXT issues.
This publication by Dr of fine arts Chukwuemeka Nwigwe who is cited for the laborious tying of the ichafu, lifts information and images from a blog about yoruba fashion items and the Gele, to specifically represent Igbo fashion and the Ichafu, while making his journal purely about Igbo fashion, not only is this very poor academic practise, it makes his publication a dubious source.

I listed these issues in the edit summaries of the publications I removed. Restoring unreliable sources is disruptive, lets aim to always fact-check even things we deem to be WP:BESTSOURCES, against reliable information that is already out there. Sohvyan (talk) 14:08, 23 June 2026 (UTC)