Beaded Skirt
Culture: Kirdi
Country: Cameroon
Formerly worn by women during important ceremonies such as marriage.
More than decorative, the apparel and ornament of Africa provide information about the bearer. Each group has a characteristic look which emphasizes qualities it considers important. Cultural ideals vary throughout the continent and are expressed in clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, arrangement of the hair, scarification, and manipulation of certain features. Within a culture a single glance is often enough for one member to place another in social context: wealth, eligibility for marriage, initiation status, and employment are all conveyed through adornment.
The possession of certain objects, such as the Cameroon Grassfields pipe, is a privilege afforded only to those of high rank. Others, such as the beaded Kirdi cashe-sex, are meant for ceremonial occasions. A rich or an important person might indicate his or her position by using elaborately decorated accessories or by wearing large numbers of the same object. The young Maasai woman pictured here has been given glass bead necklaces by her admirers. Glass is prized and not given lightly: a woman presented with so many necklaces they support her chin is considered a desirable bride.
Cultural standards determine not just the use of apparel, but its production
as well. Among the Yoruba, men and women produce different kinds of cloth
with different uses. men use horizontal looms to create narrow strips of
cotton or silk which are sewn together to make the gowns and wrapper ensembles
worn respectively by women and men of high status. Women's cloth, woven
on broader looms, has ritual as well as domestic applications. The production
of adire, cotton masked with cassava paste and dyed in indigo, was once
exclusively the work of women, but recently men have take to it as well.
Wearing the brilliantly patterned men's cloth kente, formerly allowed only
to Ashanti royalty, is now encouraged among all Ghanians as a proud expression
of national unity.