Zulu hats, made in 2010, rugby world cup. Phansi Museum
I cogitate on historical beads, beading, aspects of how change has occurred and roughly what constitutes notions of bead work today, by posing questions with reference to ongoing research in Southern Africa.
How can one roughly frame bead work here?
Bead-work is defined in this article as those items assembled together from various materials and glass beads, made by both genders, used for multivalent purposes by Indigenous people from ancient to current times. ( This would include plastic beads that were introduced in mid 1970s).
Why is beading with “ imported glass beads” considered traditional practice in South Africa?
Today the practice of using glass beads for bead work is perceived as being ‘’traditional” because perforated strung items, made from many materials were used historically for centuries in the indigenous healing industry. Glass beads, traded periodically from others, augmented and empowered this existing corpus and understanding of what beads were, and signified. This concept then was augumented by beads and beadwork worn and used for decorative purposes, that may theoretically be construed as a different genre and the complexity of these ideas have continued into current time.
How did glass beads come to be here and what was their impact?
For me, there are many metaphors evoking the relationship between how beads were made and moved about the silhouette of the planet, and how they situate and invigorate points on the body.
One can speculate that centuries ago, glass beads were manufactured here, as we had the necessary technology used for complex metallurgical practice for example, the gold beads found at Mapungubwe. Oral history also passes down elements of this practice. Hlengiwe Dube.2009:20 states "..The Xhosa called beads Insimbi which means metal, because in the past, the beads, as well as bangles, necklaces and even headdresses of kings and priests of this tribe, were made of metal."
The gold beads at Mapungubwe were also found with large quantities of glass beads. Should we assume that these were introduced as part of trade or should we question the possibility that they were made here?.
But glass beads otherwise sundered from earth’s minerals and melded with heat, swept here in boats from India, Arabia, the Mediterranean and North Africa, for trade. Voyaging across bodies of water, their infinitesimal combined weight stabilized ships in roiling seas.
Some were submerged by storms and still today spew onto the shores of East Africa as treasure. Foragers discovering this wet translucent material, once ascribed it to fantastic origins.
Disembarking at river mouths, beads in their millions were conveyed in wagons and later by rail, over earth’s contours. Then passed from hand to hand prior to finding peace, but did they find rest?
Woven into shimmering pieces that danced, were recycled or sometimes, cast by humans into rivers and streams as spiritual gifts, beads of all kinds were proffered in supplication asking for grace. Beads interred in the ground a century ago wash to the surface during harsh rainstorms in parts of the country being collected and re-used.
Beads across Southern Africa also bought human bodies wholesale, leaving behind streams of tears.
So in this way, for me, beads are indistinguishable from water, from life and from change.
Is there still a connection to water today?
Bound in ancient time, by elastic concepts and purpose, beaded strings are still laid out on river banks, lapped by water, waiting for healer-initiates undergoing induction into the water ceremony, to be donned.
Here, they intersect the body at points, protect vulnerable softness, heal and cover other circulating streams coloured by blood and urine.
So for some, bead work is part of ritual and knowledge systems. Tactility aside, perceptions surrounding beads describe them as intangible heritage. Traditional healers primarily make bead work for their relationship with the spirit world, wearing it for metaphysical and apotropaic reasons. This bead work type, incorporating glass beads, a variety of perforated animal and plant products becomes, in itself, umuti (a complex medicine). likewise, their beaded garments are potent containers echoing their bond with the ancestors. The cloth or hide backing was once part of the natural environment. The beads affixed to it now become the skin adorning the body, achieving harmony and balance with the ancestors, connecting society and landscape.
This bead work and garments impregnated with the wearers sweat, skin, fat, touch, body fluids and earth oxides reflect the form, extent and growth of the physical bodies within, during dance and life. They are considered sacred, being normally buried with the healer.
In this context, how else are beads used and what colours are they?
Zulu or Chokwe? traditional healer, early 1900.
Beads advertise a traditional healer’s occupation and the assembly techniques are taught in their initiation schools. Besides being worn as dress, beads encode various other meanings for initiates, some when they are collectively utilized by their teacher as part of tests leading to graduation.
In different areas of Southern Africa, different colours are used by healers and this depends on a variety of factors, briefly explained below.
In East Mpumalanga, they wear white or white, red and black in varying degrees.
Healer in spectacular traditional costume, Mpumalanga, 2009
The colour proportion varies from area to area depending not only on the ethnic group of the healer, but also on the particular spiritual integration of each initiate and the historical affiliations of a particular training school and numerous other symbolic intricacies.
To the laymens eye this beadwork is decorative, these pieces retaining a clarity and simplicity of design.
Traditional healer, just graduated, East Mpumalanga.
Bead work shown from behind.
Besides this type of bead work, what are the other functions of beads?
Over time, bead uses of all kinds, change and adapt. They were worn by laymen/women as part of secular garments and decoration. As beads are worn across gender and social strata by men and women, child and chief alike, they are part of a cycle of interconnected-ness. Beads and beadwork were also gifted thereby reiterating this connection.
This type of work, used as covering and adornment, by lay-people can be considered tangible heritage. This corpus of work through precise colour choice, designs, function and formal manifestation designates among others things the gender, identity, social strata, clan and in some cases, complex histories of those wearing them and in turn also reflects the technical skill and visual accomplishment of the maker. Some were/are just gorgeous drop dead works made by exceptional artists.
How did this structure develop?
Historically, some propose that after mid-1800 the designation of particular colours, patterns and styles of bead work was strictly controlled by chiefs organizing bead distribution in particular areas. This developed into a regional code or particular colour usage and complex arrangements, symbolism and meaning which distinguished tribes, clan from clan and changed from area to area.
As the prevalence of trading stores in rural areas increased and the source of beads became easily available, the monopoly and control held by chiefs was slowly eroded and women themselves then created stylistic change.
Zulu women with beads, early 1900. Also demonstrating brass- button maternity attire
In some instances, discourse regarding design forms the placenta in which patterns are born, in others by more seasoned bead workers, designs are fully conceived prior to the laborious making process for example, amongst the Ndebele peoople.
Ndebele woman, photographed by Constance Stuart Larrabee
Their technical and aesthetic brilliance forms part of the unity of the resolved piece.
In old pieces beads were assembled into working items using bits of animal hair and muscle fibre. Later bead work was made with cotton or nylon (fishing gut) imparting a sturdier texture, resistant to breakage.
But beads worn in a social context had many functions. Types of bead work were made during courting as gifts, and to convey messages to loved ones. Observation encouraged the use of letters and literacy as a decorative motif with the Ndebele people from the 1930s or later, with formal education, amongst some groups of the Zulu and were used as concepts, aphorisms and admonishes to the community from the 1960s onwards.
Bead work, showing the use of letters
For all, the wearing of beads is underpinned by original concepts. They empower the health, vitality and wellness of the wearer as beads are a way of enhancing their life force and beauty, and expressing this to the world.
At the owner death, these works were generally disintegrated, re-purposed and the beads gifted to others. So in its original environment, bead work was/is recycled into different forms by new generations.
Foreigners halted this natural recycling process by collecting pieces of bead work, thereby preserving it, leaving a record and visual data of a large corpus of historical bead work internationally and in South Africa.
Why do people collect it?
Collecting is a social habit. The Zulu people collected loose beads where they could, or brass buttons from British military uniforms that were worked into garments. The Mfingo of the Eastern Cape collected mother of pearl buttons from the 1820 settlers.
It is also not only endemic to the human race - birds for example pick up and store shiny objects.
People collect bead work for different reasons, but most collect from a deep emotional core, simply because they fall in love with it and find it evocative. Enthusiasts have an instant visceral connection to small works made from beads. When first held in the hand, the temperature, tactility and weight of these intimate objects provide non visual clues as to what bead work is and may mean.
But some people collect thinking to preserve it for future generations and this concept has become a habit. A cultural phenomenon with Europeans, as museums arose in the Northern hemisphere in the mid 1700s.
Museums were first formed from donations of individuals private collections and the first groups of objects were as diverse as: documents, scientific instruments, repositories of stuffed animals, dinosaur skeletons and dried plants. Museums then acted as an open library, where items were displayed and preserved and people could educate themselves by researching different things.
Over time museums changed becoming places where popular, social culture was arranged. Exhibitions became arenas where one could explore, from a variety of perspectives and oral history, diverse personal narratives.
What happened when bead work was collected?
A shared humanity means we immediately recognize beauty in the handmade and we relate instinctively to its importance. The advantage of collected items is that we have a record of what was made in previous times.
If these pieces had followed the natural course of events, they would have been re-purposed and lost.
But away from its environment, bead work, like any other artwork that is made, loses its original identity, symbolism and meaning and gains others. During this re contextualization processes, artwork acquire different or more cerebral meanings as they evoke discussion by viewers reflecting on different aspects, about the work. This is a normal process over time.
It is also natural. Consider the different perspectives of people when they discuss a piece made by their grandmother decades ago in a time that they can no longer relate to.
Some of bead works importance today is that these pieces reflect the joy of making, leaving us with important visual data regarding aesthetics, technical solutions and information regarding craftsmen from eons ago.
Who else writes about beading generally?
Ellen Dissanyake, who makes pertinent points to be evaluated and considered. She states that art, ritual and play all fall under the umbrella of making special, also known as elaboration. Bead work by virtue of the fact it is decorative and has multivalent meanings, is of necessity an elaboration of the body. She argues that the propensity to make and enjoy art is a universal rooted behavior, and as a need, is as fundamental to the species as food, warmth and shelter and it is central to the emergence, adaption and survival of the species. Regarding the making of pieces, Ellen Dissanyake, in homo aestheticus states that aesthetic abilities are innate to every human being and that art along with ritual and play, promotes community benefits like co-operation and social cohesion. This is always how bead work was taught, conveyed and made in Southern Africa.
Like keloids, tattoos and body modification, bead work practices have proved beneficial to the species survival as adornment is enticing, forming an important part of social interaction, gifting and sexual etiquette among the youth.
Is bead work still a living heritage in South Africa?
Yes. It is used and worn for rituals and ceremonies. In urban areas, beads are reinvented for the fashion industry, earlier forms are made for tourism or combined with wire, beads are made into new shapes and dimensions, colonizing suburban gardens as a variety of sculptural fauna and flora, some reflective, amuzing or bizarre.
But this unique industry is defenseless against those copying our national heritage in China, re-importing it at a fraction of the cost produced here, due to our outmoded importation regulations. Protection of the South African bead work industry with legal teeth is required.
Compare this to how the United States protects American Indian bead work:
The Indian arts and crafts act 1990, protects American Indian made products providing civil and criminal penalties to transgressors of up to 1000 000 dollars and 15 years in jail. Cornell. M. 2018 states it is effective as in 2015, fake American Indian jewelry made in the East, with a potential value of 35 million dollars was confiscated.
In South Africa, we require this balance and control to protect the livelihood of our most vulnerable craftsmen and women, many in the rural areas and the treasure that is our national bead making heritage.
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Interviews:
Mhike. N. Interview regarding the beading industry, 25/06/2018, Rosebank curio market. Johannesburg
Ncube. Z. Interview regarding the beading industry, 25/06/2018, Rosebank curio market. Johannesburg
Tilley-Nel. S. Interview regarding museum culture. 14/06/2018. University of Pretoria. Pretoria
Thornton. R. Interview regarding Mapungubwe glass. 4/05/2018, University of Pretoria. Pretoria
