Xhosa Beadwork
Xhosa beadwork of South Africa is made with imported glass beads sewn onto leather, cotton, or cloth supports to create necklaces, aprons, headdresses, and panels of dress worn at the great passages of life. At initiation, the beads speak: the colours and patterns worn by a young man in the circumcision school, and by the women who celebrate his return, carry coded messages of love, status, and clan that are meant to be read by the initiated. Married women wear beadwork that records their lineage and their husband's house, while older styles of white and blue bands gave way to the bright colou