General
General
Object Auto ID
66289
Common Name
Umnqwazi Presitige Headress for the wife of a Chief
Local Name
Umnqwazi
Quantity
1.00
Object Description

Headdress consists of four (4) tapering panels of antelope skin (hair on inside). Two side panels fold to back & front and are joined to the two center panels with over-sewing stitching. Decorated with black and white glass beads

It could also have been used as a Baby Carrier(imbeleko), Xhosa(Southern Nguni) South Africa, c. 1830, Antelope hide and beads

Provenance

Producer unknown. The region is the former Transkei, used and produced by the Xhosa people. Purchased from the J. Dickson Collection in August 1938. Date of origin is early 1800's.

Owner
Iziko Museums of South Africa
Description
Measurement Type Unit Value
Dimension Comments
Length with strapping 98,5cm
Length of beaded section 49cm
Width, narrow end 15,1
Width, broad end 33cm
Leather Skin Strapping 49,5cm
History
Object Age
Circa early 1800's
Object Age Comment
Created in the early 1800 by a skilled leather worker and beader in the Cape Eastern Frontier ( Transkei territories )at a time when the glass bead trade introduced by missionaries was at its apex with hugely inflated prices.
Maker Comment
Contemporary accounts refer to strings of beads being exchanged for elephants and oxen and it was estimated that the value of tiny glass beads imported from Venice became inflated tens of thousands times.

Consequently this was an extremely costly prestige piece, appropriate to convet the status of the wife of a Chief, yet also to emphasize the wealth and power of her husband too.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 South Africa License.