South-east Africa
(Late nineteenth century / early twentieth century)
78 x 8.5cm (excluding tassles)
This sash is a particularly fine examples of this form of beadwork. For similar sashes, see Michael Stevenson and Michael Graham-Stewart, South East African beadwork: from adornment to artefact to art, Cape Town, 2000, pp.172–3, nos.226–231. Such sashes have traditionally been described as ‘Zulu’, but in recent years with the art historical revision of South African material culture, they have been more broadly categorised as made by ‘Zulu-speakers’ or by North Nguni peoples. This is because the term Zulu should strictly only be applied to people from the Zulu Kingdom rather than the many people who speak Zulu dialects in south-east Africa. It could be argued that this classification – specifically in terms of such sashes – should be even broader. Very little is known and has been published on the beadwork worn by the societies neighbouring Zulu-speaking communities: for instance, the Swazi and the many communities that comprised the so-called Tsonga peoples in southern Mozambique and the south-eastern Transvaal, as well as the off-shoots of the Zulu nation who moved northwards along the east coast. The likelihood exists that such sashes were made and worn in this broader region as there was more trade and interaction than is generally acknowledged. Unraveling this complex history on the making and use of beadwork in the south- east African region is still in its infancy.
This sash illustrates its makers’ profound understanding of design, and display an extraordinary ability to use beads – which are essentially single dots of colour – to create artistry. They have used geometric motifs to produce patterns that are visually exciting rather than merely decorative and repetitive by providing subtle shifts and reversals in colour and form. Note, for example, the careful juxtaposition of the two sections of pixilated smaller triangles with the larger flat shapes in the three alternating sections to achieve a formal dynamism. This large perfectly-flat and precisely-made panel displays the technical skills of the women who made this sash and their mastery of the medium of beads.