×

Love letters from South Africa: The culture of Zulu beadwork

Submitted Photo Maggie Bryant-Peterson presented her paper on the culture of Zulu beadwork at a recent meeting of the Fredonia Shakespeare Club.

The Fredonia Shakespeare Club met for its second regular meeting of the 2017-2018 year at the home of President Joan Larson, who presided. Lucille Richardson assisted at the tea table. There were 14 members present.

With the theme The Worlds of Africa, Maggie Bryant-Peterson presented her paper.

Africa’s fascinating bead history predates the African Trade Bead era by over 75,000 years. The first known examples of beads were found in the Blombos Cave near Cape Town in 2004. Early beads were fashioned from the shell of ostrich eggs and there is evidence that these beads were used as currency some 12,000 years ago.

The Zulu people have inhabited KwaZulu-Natal, commonly referred to as the Zulu Kingdom, since the late 1400s. It is important to emphasize that at the height of the Zulu Empire, beads had considerable economic value. Possession of beads in large quantity was an indicator of power and political influence and, because they were an important medium of exchange, it also distinguished the rich from the poor. Today the Zulu clan represents the largest ethnic group in South Africa, with at least 11 million people in the kingdom and smaller populations in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The Zulu people are known around the world for their elaborate glass beadwork. The Zulu used the beads to establish certain codes and rituals in their society. The beadwork of the Zulu stands out from others in two respects: the wide range of its contracts and the system of including messages by means of the colors and motifs. At a time when the Zulu had no written means for messages to be written, they developed a form of symbolism in their beadwork using color, color combinations and patterns, especially in those items that were made of love tokens or for adornment.

A look at beads from a historical perspective recognizes time and looks at beads as artifacts that move from one generation to the next as a valuable asset, often within a family. There is an essential element that identifies beads as a linkage between the past and the present. When one looks at a bead, it is hard not to think about who previously owned it and how far through time and distance it has traveled to reach its current spot. One of the most intriguing aspects to beads is how they have survived so many generations of wear and traveled through at least three continents. Who wore them before us who will have them next.

Beadwork is made and worn by women to denote their life cycle from puberty to adult and married status. All traditional Zulu beadwork, excluding items used by ritual specialists, relates in some way to courtship and marriage, helping to regulate behavior between genders. Beadwork communicates between unrelated males and females, avoiding the discomfort of direct initial discourse on the sensitive subject of personal relations.

The triangle is the simple shape used in all Zulu beadwork, giving gender information or even material status. Each corner of the triangle has its own representation and in the Zulu community, each corner of the triangle signifies Father, Mother, and Child. If the triangle’s tip is pointing up it means that the woman is unmarried. For men if the triangle’s tip is pointing down, then it means an unmarried man; for a married woman, two triangles are put together in a form of a diamond, (also a universal fertility symbol for the Zulu community). For married men, they make the two tips of the triangles meet that forms sort of an hourglass shape. Depending on the way that the tip of the triangle is pointing, it informs whether the person wearing it is a boy, a girl, and/or if they are married.

The other way that the Zulu communicate with beadwork is with color. Color is the primary way they communicate feelings and symbols in which they want to express as each color has its own meaning extending to meaning as colors are put together. It can be a negative or positive expression that is being conveyed and it is interpreted by the juxtaposition of the colors as well as the number of beads. With color coding, whenever black is next to white it means marriage; red next to black means an aching heart; yellow combined with red and black is usually negative and meaning that someone is withering away. The colors explain what mood the person is in, what their emotions are.

While Zulu beadwork consists of many styles and types from simple strings of beads to various constructions with multiple strands of beads to bead-covered objects, it is the Zulu love letter, ubhala abuyise (meaning “one writes in order that the other should reply”) that is unique to the Zulu. It is a private and public communication of the status of one’s love life.

It became the practice for women to send love letters made of beads in early 1800s. The order in which they were made conveyed the various messages. The messages were in small ornamental squares and were read from the outside inwards. Another theory of bead message evolution is that these “letters” were developed when Zulu men began working in the mines. Illiterate, communication from home took the form of ornament, where particular colored beads signified different emotions.

Zulu beadwork has been valued as currency, as decoration, and as a marker of identity. Stylistic variations of beadwork such as pattern, color and color sequence often indicated a geographical area or group affiliation. Beadwork in the past was a status symbol and an important means of personal expression. Colors and patterns were used within a society to indicate social status and were a means of modest communication between the sexes, as in the case of Zulu “love letters.” More currently, wearing beadwork is increasingly being seen as reclaiming a cultural identity. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether beadwork is a craft, an art, a communication system similar in principle to a written language or part of a symbolic code by specialists in traditional magic.

Though traditional beadwork still holds a serious place in Zulu culture, the decorative art form is often modified for tourists. Curio shops and tourist markets have created a market trading with beads. Tourists often become attracted to Zulu beadwork for historical and culturally aesthetic reasons.

Zulu beadwork is closely integrated with Zulu social organization, the technology of specialized craftsmanship, religious beliefs and magic, educational objectives, communication and even recreation. Beadwork, as an art form, is a vital part of social relationships and the communication of ideas.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today