Once we arrived at the village gate we had to ask for permission to enter and wait for the gate to be opened. The men were invited in first followed by the women. This division of the sexes with men on one side and women on the other was maintained through the first couple of demonstrations to show the custom of the Zulu people.
The first demonstration was on how they made their spears. They used to use ironwood for the tip but discovered iron ore in the mountains years ago and began using it. I thought it was really ingenious the way they made bellows from animal hide, sticks, and hollowed out bamboo.
The next station was on the different types of shields and how they made them out of animal hides.
Pottery and baskets were demonstrated next. TAKE NOTICE - as Zulu women sometimes do not wear tops, there are a couple of pictures of a bare breasted woman demonstrating how they carry the baskets and pots on their heads. She is also in some of the dance pictures later.
We them visited the medicine hut where the Healers practice divination, physical and emotional healing as well as those with spiritual illnesses.
Next we were shown the different dress for women and what it meant ( single, engaged, or married) and the various beads they make to wear. Beads are used to send messages to people such as when a single girl sends a certain type of bead necklace to a man announcing her intentions for him to ask for her hand in marriage and to give her father the required dowry of 8 cows.
Engaged as part of her head is covered.
Married as all of her head is covered.
We were then given a song and dance show. First they prepared a beer and passed it around for us to sample. It was kind of sour and tasted like it had sand in it.
Then the dancing began. AGAIN TAKE NOTICE - there are a few pictures that include a bare breasted woman doing one of the traditional dances.
No comments:
Post a Comment