Borders of beads: questions of identity in the beadwork of the Zulu-speaking people

African Arts, Summer, 2005 by Carol Boram-Hays

More recently, regional barriers between some areas have become more permeable and as a result, differences in the styles of beadwork from these areas less pronounced (Fig. 6). As the apartheid-era restrictions on travel have been lifted and more women venture outside of their home areas to seek employment, women have an increasing amount of contact with people from different regions. Especially in cities such as Durban and at national festivals where artists from the surrounding areas come to work and sell their wares, beadwork styles are being exchanged (Yvonne Winters, personal communication, 1997). This is in dramatic contrast to the period under the apartheid system, when women rarely had the opportunity to communicate with people from outside of their local region. In the exceptional event that they married a man from a different area, they were expected to adopt the patrilocal beadwork style wholesale, rather than introducing styles from their native area. But while these exchanges seem to allude to a breakdown in some of the cultural divisions between regions in Zululand, there still remain many regional variations in beadwork that reflect the continuing heterogeneity of the cultural identities of the Zulu-speaking people (Fig. 7).

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Socio-Economic Identity

Since the origin of the kingdom and throughout its regions, Zulu society has been stratified according to wealth, age grade, gender, and martial status. Wealth gives an individual a higher social position, with access to more material goods, a wider choice of marriage partners, and increased access to political power. Social rank is also determined by one's region of origin, age, marital status, and gender. As indicated earlier, those nearer to the Zulu capitol generally enjoy a higher social status than those who are more removed. Across Zululand, married men of senior rank enjoy the most social prestige, followed by younger married men, women (in the order in which they have married their husband), courting age people, and children. So, as individuals age and enter new phases of life, they acquire both greater responsibilities and greater prestige.

Dress has always been an important signifier of these societal divisions and, as beadwork's role was expanded among the Zulu-speaking people, it came to have a place in communicating information about the wearer's socio-economic identity. Because they are imported goods, beads were and continue to be expensive items. Consequently, the quantity of beads worn is indicative of the wealth of the individual. The quantity, types, and combinations of beadwork ornaments worn also came to convey information about an individual's age, gender, and courting or marital status. Before the age of puberty, Zulu children traditionally wore little, if any, clothing. If they wore anything, it was simple tokens of affection such as strings of beads and/or minimal, fringed pubic aprons with simple designs called isigege (Fig. 8). As young men and women reached the age of courting, they began wearing elaborate outfits to advertise their new social status and attract the attention of members of the opposite sex. Young women made and wore aprons also called isigege, consisting of a panel of bead fabric attached to a band made of bead fabric or composed of tubes of grass or cloth covered in beads; beaded hair ornaments; belts consisting of strings of beads, or tubes of grass or cloth covered in strings of beads; anklets formed from bead fabric panels or strings of beads; and wristlets made from bead fabric panels or strings of beads. In addition, they wore a variety of neck ornaments that took the form of tubular structures wrapped with strings of beads, necklaces featuring one or more bead fabric panels in various shapes and sizes, and/or beaded chokers (Fig. 9). Young men did not normally wear beadwork until young women gave it to them, but dressed in animal products and donned metal ornaments, and, more recently, have taken to adorning themselves in brightly colored items of Western-style clothing.