Women, Beadwork and Bodies: The Making and Marking of Migrant Liminality in South Africa, 1850–1950

Abstract

Migrant labour practices in southern Africa pulled large numbers of men into the cities and onto the mines, leaving women at home to tend the fields, bring up the children, care for the elderly and, most importantly, to keep cultural identity alive. At the same time, migrant labour provided cash for those left behind, facilitated the passage of trade goods from cities and trading stores into rural settlements and thus saw to the transformation and sometimes the death of local traditions of making. The introduction of increasingly large quantities of glass beads into southern Africa from the early nineteenth century saw the emergence of new forms of dress and regalia, made by the women left at home in rural villages, and worn by men and women as forms of indigenous dress. Although beads were used as a currency by the Mpondo peoples and were highly desired by many other East Coast peoples, they were, in fact a luxury, very expensive, and could from the 1850s only be acquired with...