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Illuminated Signs:
Style and Meaning in the Beadwork of the Xhosa- and Zulu-speaking Peoples By Gary van Wyk This article was first published, with footnotes that are omitted here, in African Arts, vol. 36:3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 12-33, 93-94. For citation purposes, please note that figure numbers, placement, and captions have been altered here. PART 1: INTRODUCTION & SIGNIFICATORY FUNCTIONS OF BEADWORK PART 2: XHOSA BEADWORK PART 3: ZULU BEADWORK, CONCLUSION, & REFERENCES PART 2: XHOSA BEADWORK The Xhosa Peoples and the Work of Joan Broster To speak of either the "Xhosa" or "Zulu" is to elide complex identities. These two great language families share, however, common Nguni origins, which history has obscured. The Xhosa, also known as the South Nguni or Cape Nguni, are united by dialects of the Xhosa language and other cultural features, but they consist of several distinct peoples. Listed roughly from south to north on the southeast coast of South Africa (Fig. 6), the principal groups are the Xhosa per se, Thembu, Mfengu, Bomvana, Mpondo, Mpondomise, Xesibe, and Bhaca.  6. Distribution of Xhosa-speaking peoples. Adapted from Broster 1973. The lineages of the Xhosa "proper," including the Gcaleka paramount chiefdom and the breakaway Ngqika and other junior branches, straddled the southern border of the former Transkei, which now falls into the province of Eastern Cape. Equally useful are Broster's books. She recounts her experiences rather anecdotally in Red Blanket Valley (1967) and more analytically in The Tembu: Their Beadwork, Songs and Dances (1976), which views Thembu society through its rigid age grades, each with distinctive dress (See Part 1, Fig. 5), songs, and dances. Though not scholarly, these volumes provide the most detailed study to date of the social significance of beadwork within a Xhosa-speaking society. In 1967 Broster spent several months among the Gcaleka, the senior chieftaincy of the Xhosa per se. In 1968 and 1969, with noted ethnographic photographer Alice Mertens, she documented ceremonies among the various peoples of the former Transkei, published in African Elegance (1973). During the 1970s Broster, with Herbert Boum, embarked on a study of diviners among the Xhosa peoples, published in Amagqirha: Religion, Magic and Medicine in Transkei (1981). Her later books assist in comparison across different Xhosa peoples, as do similar volumes by others (Tyrell 1968; Morris & West 1976; Morris & Levitas 1984), but they lack the detail of her books on the Thembu.  7. Mfengu ochred shirt, 19th century. Cotton, height 52cm (20.5"). Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. At Qebe, Broster lived among the amaQwati, a refugee Xesibe group that had settled among the Thembu in the early 1800s and adopted Thembu customs and dress. The Qwati were staunch traditionalists who "steadfastly refused all offers of a school and a church and still adhere[d] to their old pagan life" (1967:6), signified through their wearing of red ochre, "beloved by the ancestral spirits"(1976:3). Broster noted, "Beautiful tribal dress, beadwork, songs and dances are the media employed in ancestral worship but in everyday life those who adhere to this faith are recognised by the red ochre or clay which they apply to body, blankets and clothing. This is the color of their faith and they are therefore called 'Red People' " (Broster 1973:2)-or amaQaba, as distinct from Christianized Xhosa-speakers. Ochred clothing signified religious and cultural continuity. Broster also notes that ochre color "varies from the palest orange to the deepest red-brown. Each tribe [sic] has a particular colour preference and will use no other" (1973:2) (Figs.8 & 9).
Tobacco bags covered on both sides with large beads are among the most striking examples of South African 19th-century beadwork to survive. Several bags entered collections during the late 1800s, but in many cases the beads themselves predate the 1870s. They are frequently identified as "Zulu" or as "Fingo" (Mfengu), indicating that their owners were originally refugees from Zulu-speaking areas who settled among Xhosa-speakers. Such beadwork likely reflects the survival of early North Nguni patterns that had been used in the places from which these people fled. Certainly, some of these patterns persisted for more than a century, long after the refugees were assimilated. For example, the motif in the bag on the far right continued to be found among the Thembu people among whom broster lived.  10. Tobacco bags, 19th century. Far right 24.8cm (9.75"). Photo: Lisa Brittan, Axis Gallery. As this passage suggests, Xhosa peoples regarded white as the primary color of purity and mediation-and traditionalists still do. Only white beads were used as offerings to spirits and, on very rare occasions, to the Creator. White clay (ingceke) is still used to indicate such liminal states as male circumcision, female initiation, and nursing at the breast. Equally persistent is the use of predominantly white beads among diviners, amagqirha, because white is associated with purity and the supernatural clarity and inspiration of the ancestors (Fig. 11).As the father sacrifices the goat he calls out, "Mawetu! My ancestors! Today I sacrifice to you for the reddening of the child." The guests reply, "Camagu!" This may be loosely interpreted as; "we give thanks for blessings from the ancestors." The goat is then skinned and the right shoulder is roasted and taken to the child and its mother in the hut….Early on Sunday morning the meat is divided between the men and women and cooked separately. After all have feasted the father of the child addresses the guests. He says, "I now offer the beads. May the child be healthy and prosper!" The guests reply, "Camagu." The host approaches the men first and then the women. He gives each guest two small white beads. Each one receives and returns the beads with the word "Camagu." When all the beads have been given and returned the man takes the beads to his wife. She immediately threads a simple necklace of knotted beads and fastens it on the child. Then only, may mother and child meet the guests. This ceremony is comparable to Christian baptism. The red ochre and beads are the first symbols of the Qaba Faith. Later the child will be taught to worship his ancestral spirits in song and dance. It is for these reasons that Christian Africans will not wear red ochre or beads nor will they join in tribal [sic] dancing and singing. In the absence of any written law, beads and ochre carefully convey ideas of custom and procedure. Thus they are used as regulating agents in the life of the tribe [sic] and a form of bead symbolism in colour combinations and motif has been developed to convey messages. Each tribe [sic] has its own set of colour combinations and patterns for every age group.
11. Costumes of a Xhosa diviner (left) and her acolyte (right), collected by Joan Broster between 1952 and 1966, showing the beaded veil, calabashes, and cow horn. Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery.  12. Xhosa white ceremonial skirt, 20th century. Cotton with braid, buttons, beads; 152.4cm x 127cm (60" x 50"). Photo: Lisa Brittan, Axis Gallery. It is probable that glass beads and shell and brass buttons in beadwork were, like red ochre, regarded as immanent media. They were possessed of divine shine (Fig. 13). As in many parts of Africa, smiths were viewed with awe for their magical transformation of earth into shining metal, which was rare in precolonial South Africa. Metal was produced in the north around the first millennium and traded widely. Fourteenth-century plates for drawing wire have been discovered at Ingombe Ilede and Great Zimbabwe (Duncan Miller, personal communication, 2002); by the nineteenth century woven-wire decorations (sometimes combining iron, copper, and brass) were applied to regional weapons, staffs, and gourds. Wire-weaving and basketry techniques provided a precedent for the virtuosity achieved later in beadwork techniques. (In the twentieth century brightly colored, plastic-covered telephone wire provides an interesting extension of both beadwork and woven wire.) Early Xhosa people believed that glass beads washed up on the shore came from ancestors in the sea. Mother-of-pearl buttons probably carried similar associations; certainly, they were seen as extraordinary. The awesome immanence of these materials probably obviated pattern creation in the earliest beadwork. Rather, each gleaming iteration added power within an additive aesthetic. Also, because these materials were currency, each addition was value added, pronouncing the sacrifice of wealth in the service of personal presentation, which in turn saluted the ancestors from whom abundance flowed.  13. Mfengu cotton headscarf embroidered with a radiant floral motif and highlighted with mother-of-pearl buttons, 1940s. Barbara Tyrrell, who conducted fieldwork in the 1940s, remarked that some buttons on similar scarfs dated back as far as the 1820s, when they were important trade items. Mfengu textiles in collections often have missing buttons, probably because they were removed to use elsewhere. On headscarves, buttons that are hidden when the folded scarf is worn have often been pillaged. Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. Beads and buttons were second only to the currencies of iron and of cattle, which the Xhosa seldom traded because their society revolved around cattle. With increased supply, the value of beads and buttons dropped, but even in the 1830s, when trade was much freer, beads costing 9 pence to 1 shilling could be traded for 6 pounds sterling (Godlonton 1834 in Shaw & Van Warmelo 1988:863)-a profit of up to 10,000%! In the mid-1800s Xhosa day-labor could be hired for beads worth less than 3 pence, or a dozen brass buttons (Shaw 1860, Backhouse 1844, Boyce 1861, in Shaw & Van Warmelo 1988:864).buttons pass for money; the colour of the beads is regulated by the prevailing fashion, which is as much attended to here as at Paris; so that many traders at Grahamstown have suffered considerable loss by not having them of the fashionable colour. As the women are exceedingly fond of both beads and buttons, they put their husbands to great expense. The dress of a woman in many instances costs twelve or twenty oxen. Viewed against this historical and economic context, the initial aesthetic impression of a hat worn by a Xhosa chief's wife (Fig. 14) today should probably be multiplied by a factor of 10,000 to begin to understand the original impact of this item.  14. Headdress for a Xhosa woman, 19th century. Height 62cm (24.5"). Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. A hat like this was fashionable for women of rank from the beginning of the 1800s, when its beads cost their husbands the equivalent of three oxen (Thomas Baines in Shaw & Van Warmelo 1988:479). It declined in favor in the 1830s, when beads began to flood the market and became less significant as markers of elevated status. Colored kerchiefs and spotted head-cloths became fashionable instead, and by the 1850s it was reported that only royal woman still wore such hats (Shaw & Van Warmelo 1988:552). Nonetheless, European artists continued to represent it after it was no longer worn (Van Wyk 1993a:69, 71-72). Even when beads were readily obtainable in the 1950s and 1960s, Broster reveals their expensiveness. In Qebe the average annual family income was $45, allowing less than $4 per month for corn (the staple), salt, matches, paraffin, local tobacco, and small quantities of tea, sugar, coffee, and flour-apart from cloth and beads. A 200-pound bag of corn cost the buyer $3, on which the Brosters made about 15˘. Wages on nearby white-owned farms were $1.50 per month for men and 75˘ or less for women, while Broster employed young boys to help her in the garden at 7˘ per day. Young men might return after six months' work in the gold mines with savings of $45, of which they would spend several dollars purchasing beads at 1˘ per 10-inch string (Broster 1967:20), which their girlfriends would use to make items for them. Ochre came in little packets costing 4˘ or 8˘. Although the Brosters' monthly profit at the store was about $70, they were unable to raise bank credit of $150. Life was not easy for anybody. Nonetheless, between 1932 and 1955 the world's major bead manufacturer, which then had a virtual monopoly, exported to South Africa about half of all the beads sold to Africa, which consumed more beads than any other continent (Saitowitz 1993:37, fig. 21, p.44). This statistic clearly suggests that South Africa was the world's greatest producer of beadwork in this era (Fig. 15).  15. Xhosa man's prestige beaded waistcoat, 1930s. Solid beadwork fabric, leather, sinew, mother-of-pearl buttons; width 41.9cm (16.5"). Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. Broster noted that the Thembu were reluctant to sell beadwork. "Again and again I have tried to buy their beadwork, but excluding exceptional circumstances it is not for sale" (1967:18). Nonetheless, Broster collected 4,000 objects during her fourteen years in Qebe. More than half of these were items that the owners sold discreetly because of economic need (Broster, p. 176). She acquired three complete outfits as a result of calamity. In one case, a young woman became pregnant by a youth who refused to marry her. As part of the fine levied upon the man's family, her family demanded the return of the beadwork that she had made for him out of her own farm wages, and which represented twenty percent of the bride-price of five head of cattle that his family would have paid upon marriage (p. 177). Spite and jealousy, she remarks, were the motives behind the sale of a costume belonging to an elderly man, whose mistress of fifteen years demanded its return when he took up with a younger woman. In the third case, although it was an "unheard of act to sell the beadwork of a deceased person," the widow of a young man sold his beadwork because she decided to become a Christian and figured that every evil she could imagine had already befallen her (p. 178). Symbolism in Xhosa Beadwork  16. Thembu throat bands, 1952-66. Collection of Joan Broster. According to Broster, the bands indicate (top to bottom): 1) a single river with eight stars, 2) a double river with stars, 3) many rivers in mountainous terrain, 4) trees, 5) trees and stars. Photo: Arthur Bowland. Regarding Thembu motifs and symbols, Broster notes: The constituent elements of the "V" and the triangle were locally named litsomo and idlawa (Broster, pp. 31-32). A favored zigzag motif represented the local river and was named after it, whereas combinations of zigzags suggested multiple rivers in rugged terrain (pp. 104, 174-75). Trees were denoted by chevrons of various orientation and by diagonal or serrated vertical lines; diamonds often connoted stars (pp. 170-75) (Fig. 16). Broster mentions but does not illustrate an old design called isadunge, which represents pools of water in a dry river bed (pp. 33-34). Behind such environmental symbols may lie concepts related to the ancestors underwriting fertility and the health of the land, but this supposition cannot be corroborated.Favourite motifs are stars, trees, rivers, diamonds, quadrangles, chevrons, circles and parallel lines and one or more of these are combined to form a pattern. The patterns are relatively simple and some are exclusive to age groups. As in all their beadwork their design may be purely decorative or the artist may tell a story using the motifs as symbols. Thus a chevron may denote a hut and a diamond a child but there is always individual preference and artistic license.  17. Thembu "love letter" pins, 1952-66. Collection of Joan Broster. Broster (1967) illustrated the symbolism of Thembu motifs on these pins. Top row (left to right): 1) a young wife five months pregnant, 2) a young and fertile wife whose bride-price was seven cattle and who has three sons, 3) an unmarried girl four months pregnant. Middle row: 1) a bride in her wedding dress, 2) an old, hard-working married woman, 3) a very hard-working newly married woman whose bride-price was six cattle. Third row: 1) a young and glamorous courtesan, 2) a young man with two girlfriends, 3) a young mother with two daughters. Bottom row: 1 & 2) letters denoting pubescent girls aged 13 and 15 respectively, 3) a virgin aged about 15. Photo: Arthur Bowland. For ordinary people, contact with the ancestors was closest at ceremonial occasions, when animal sacrifices were made or beer was drunk, since both summoned the ancestors and were closely associated with them. On these occasions a profusion of beads was worn, the heaviness of the glass probably impressing upon the wearer the weight of symbolism contained in the beads. Zolani Mkiva, a noted imbongi, or traditional poet, and the current C.E.O. of the Xhosa Royal Council, describes his beadwork regalia as being like telephone wire that connects him with his ancestors (Lisa Brittan, videotaped interview, 2000). Beer-drinking gatherings for specific age grades were similarly important occasions. Among the Thembu these galas were each controlled by an executive committee, strictly constituted, and regulated by behavioral rules and fines. They included the Umtshotsho and the Isijadu for teenagers, the Intlombe for young adults of marriageable age, and the Ibasi for married men, their mistresses, and mature single women-widows, divorceés, deserted wives, and unmarried mothers (Broster 1976:71). At all such occasions, tradition-underwritten by the ancestors-was expressed through ceremonial white clothing, extensive beadwork, and traditional songs and dances. Status Mapped Through Dress Broster's work provides detailed evidence of how status could be read from dress in Thembu society. An example of how costume marked the Thembu individual's progress within and between age grades is the change in penis sheaths. Boys aged 13 wore calabash sheaths; aged 15, sheaths were of civet or wild cat fur, which they could decorate with the tail from the pelt at 17. At 18 or 19, they wore fluffy angora sheaths. At around 20, before circumcision, a young man was entitled to a goatskin sheath, a beaded pipe and can for tobacco (like those seen in Fig. 5a), and a jackal-tail headdress. His broad, navy-and-white choker necklace contrasted with the dark turquoise beadwork, highlighted with cerise wool, that indicated younger men and women (Broster 1976:14-17). The costume now included around 135 items. A teenage girl's costume would have almost 200 items, including 50 or more brass armbands and 50 or more rubber leggings adapted from jam-jar seals.  18. Partial costume of an adult Thembu man, 20th century. The costume shows a strong use of navy blue, red, and white beads, and features an openwork "waistcoat." Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. As Thembu men and women aged, their beadwork remained predominantly navy and white, but now contrasted with pink. Male elders generally wore two beaded collars, ten or more throat necklaces, at least three long necklaces reaching almost to the ground (Broster 1976:76, see also 1967:65), and numerous beaded items for the limbs. At the Ibasi, an older man was dressed by his mistress; she was assisted by another woman who handed her, in order, the approximately 100 elements of the costume.
19. Partial costume of an adult Xhosa man, 20th century. In contrast to the Thembu costume in Fig. 18, here light turquoise dominates in the openwork, crossover "tunic" that features large hip panels (detail). Photo: Gary van Wyk, Axis Gallery. Together, Broster's costumes and accounts illustrate how beadwork signified synchronically both within a specific Thembu community and across the various Xhosa-speaking groups. It is not always possible to identify individual beaded works precisely in terms of ethnic origin, gender, age group, and other criteria. However, a synchronic, cross-cultural comparison reveals how the beadwork of Xhosa-speakers, especially when compared as complete ensembles, constituted a semiotic system of structured differences through which identity could be minutely read. PART 3: ZULU BEADWORK
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