Zulu women wear wide hats like this one, called Isicholos, to proclaim their married status. The hat is based on a hairstyle that married Zulu women wore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Initially, Zulu women shaved their heads, leaving a tuft of hair that they covered with fat and ochre. Later they grew the tuft into a truncated cone, wove other materials into the hair and covered their hair with fat and ochre. The women also wore headbands as a sign of respect for the adult men in their husbands families.

By the turn of the century a woven hat that to this day is usually worn on special occasions replaced the cone-shaped hairstyle. This hat has a circular basketry frame over which a cotton cloth is stretched and knotted at the top. Overstitching the cloth produced the concentric circles that begin at the top of the hat and continue over the sides.

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+/- 40

Afrique du Sud

Zulou

37 x 5

1.000