What is Ndebele beadwork?
The Ndebele peoples of present-day South Africa and Zimbabwe use beadwork as a means of marking the different cultural stages of a woman’s life. Items like a girl’s apron (lighabi), the example above dating to the mid-twentieth century, were made to be worn by small children, most often girls.
What are the Ndebele beads called?
isigolwani
Ndebele women and girls A married woman traditionally wears a blanket over her shoulders with a lot of thick beaded hoops of twisted grass, called “isigolwani” around her neck and legs.
What is the main function of Ndebele beadwork?
Beadwork has been used to carry all sorts of other meanings – communicating social and cultural messages about the wearer’s age, marital status or regional origin, for example. Once married, an Ndebele woman might be expected to wear a beaded blanket cape like this one.
What is the significance of beads?
Beads are an integral part of African history from time immemorial. They function as money, they possess power, they indicate wealth, they are spiritual talismans, and they form coded messages.
Where is the Ndebele tribe located?
South Africa
Ndebele, also called Transvaal Ndebele, any of several Bantu-speaking African peoples who live primarily in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa. The Ndebele are ancient offshoots of the main Nguni-speaking peoples and began migrations to the Transvaal region in the 17th century.
What do the Ndebele Colours mean?
There are five main colours represented: red and dark red, yellow to gold, a sky blue, green, and sometimes pink. The colours give an intensified symbolic meaning to the Ndebele. They can mean status or power of the home’s owners, offer prayer, announce a marriage in the home, or can represent a current protest.
How do ndebeles get married?
The first stage, Labola is for the bride and paid in installments with both money and livestock. The second stage is a two-week separation of the bride. The third stage is completed when the bride has her first child. It should be noted that the Ndebele allow for polygyny (having more than one wife at a time).
What does it mean when your waist beads break?
Your waist bead is totally breakable either because you’re eating too or maybe while moving too fast, you don’t get to notice your beads attached to something and it rips it off your waist. This is totally normal. You just need to take note of what you were doing before it happened.
How do Ndebele celebrate heritage?
In earlier times, the Ndebele wife would wear copper and brass rings around her arms, legs and neck, symbolising her bond and faithfulness to her husband, once her home was built. She would only remove the rings after his death. The rings (called idzila) were believed to have strong ritual powers.
What does the Bible say about waist beads?
There are no verses in the Bible or Quran that speaks against wearing of African beads. Even if there is, African waist beads are fashionable and our forebears wore them with a great sense of dignity.
What do white beads symbolize?
The people of southern Africa are known to wear beads around their neckline, representing the symbol to assist the spirits. Since white dresses are a reflection to purity and cleanliness, wearing white beads also promotes sincerity, honesty, purity and cleanliness.
