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The luminous beauty of South African beadwork on stamps

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The 8th DefinitiveThe luminous beauty of South African beadwork on stamps

T h e 8 t h D e f i n i t i v eT h e l u m i n o u s b e a u t y o f S o u t h A f r ican beadwor k on s tamps

Photographs by Sascha Lipka Written by Carol KaufmanEdited by Louise van Niekerk

South African

The 8th Definitive

The luminous beuauty of South African beadwork on stamps

© Published by the South African Post Office – Philatelic Services

First published 2010

Beadwork items from Iziko Museum, Cape Town

Photoraphs – Sascha Lipka (Light Blue Photography)

Cover design and layout – Thea Clemons

Written by – Carol Kaufmann, Curator of African Art, Iziko Museum, Cape Town

Edited by – Louise van Niekerk

Reproduction and printing by –

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a

retrieval system without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN ???????????

Philatelic Services, Private Bag X505, Pretoria, 0001

e-mail – sa.stamps@postoffice.co.za

Contents 1 Introduction: A brilliant legacy

7 The 8th Definitive

11 Beaded wire work figures

35 Neck pieces

63 Aprons, Decorative body and leg ornaments,

Hand bags and Fertility Dolls

75 Triangular bead work designs

89 Steel pins and Medicine containers

107 Beadwork earrings

119 Cosmetic holders and Snuff boxes

130 Items for possible future use

166 Visual History of the Definitives

6 1

A brilliant legacy

Celebrating the luminous beauty of South African

beadwork

Traditional beadwork holds a special place in South African

culture and is acknowledged as works of art in major museums

and collections worldwide. The vibrant colours and rich variety of

patterns and composition reflected in this art form echo the vibrancy

and diversity of our country and its people. It is therefore appropriate

that the country’s 8th definitive series of stamps depict some of the

most beautiful examples of these cultural gems.

Beadwork from the Permanent Collection of the Iziko South

2 3

African National Gallery and the holdings of the Iziko Social History

Collections in the South African Museum was selected for the new

definitive series. The series, issued on 27 October 2010 at the Joburg

2010 International Stamp Show in Sandton, acknowledges the beauty

and artistic value of beadwork.

The images depicted on the range of values and philatelic

products, were captured on film by photographer Sascha Lipka.

The art of glass beadwork in South Africa holds a place in the

culture of South African people, equal in importance to the value

placed by societies in other parts of Africa on the art of figurative

carving. It dates back to the 1700s or even earlier when tonnes of

tiny glass beads were imported from Europe into South Africa as a

means of exchange. Their colour and luminousness made them

instantly desirable to local populations and swiftly replaced the

natural materials used to decorate clothing. Glass beadwork rapidly

developed into a popular art form practiced almost exclusively

by women.

Although the art of beadwork in its classical form is rarely

practiced today, it remains vital in the realm of belief systems such as

ancestor worship, healing, and modern forms of Christianity, social

activities such as rites of passage, weddings and self-help projects in

the fight against HIV/Aids, and lastly, tourist and craft industries.

Each individual creation of South African beadwork has been

carefully designed and ingeniously executed. Compositions

tend to favour non-figurative and symmetrical arrangements of

geometric motifs within a specific colour palette. Colour, pattern

and composition communicate important social, religious and even

political meanings. They reflect identity and status within communities.

Meanings can also be secret or intensely personal, particularly in

matters of love.

Beadwork items of the North Nguni (Zulu, Swazi, and Ndebele)

and South Nguni (Xhosa) cultures were accumulated over lifetimes

to be worn in sumptuous displays of up to 150 pieces simultaneously.

Sotho-Tswana, Venda and Tsonga societies of the northern and

4 5

north-westerly reaches of South Africa gained access to glass trade

beads about a century later than Nguni societies to the south-

east. They were accomplished metal workers and ceramicists, who

used local materials for adornment before glass beads were freely

available.

Ancestors of present San populations were once long-ranging

hunters who left their mark in the extraordinary rock art heritage of

South Africa. They and modern descendant San were masterly at

incorporating found objects, exotic marine shell and fragments of

worked ostrich egg shell and occasionally rare glass beads into

extraordinary items of adornment such as elaborate shell neckpieces,

tortoise-shell cosmetic containers and appliquéd skin bags.

The art of beadwork in South Africa has great antiquity. Tiny

Nassarius marine shells pierced and worn strung together have

been dated 75 000 years BP from Blombos cave. Glass beads found

in the Limpopo province were imported from Egypt (Fustat) in the

9th century AD via the Arab-Indian Ocean trade. From the 15th

century onwards, Portuguese, Dutch and British colonials introduced

increasing quantities of glass beads as a medium of exchange

for commodities such as ivory, animal skins, slaves and palm oil.

Established beadwork traditions in South Africa have affinities with

similar forms in East Africa, being the arts of herders and farmers.

Many South Africans, despite modern beliefs and education,

consult traditional healers when things go wrong. These healers called

izangomain isiZulu are identified by their use of white beadwork. This

colour is associated with qualities of lightness, illumination and purity.

Through ritual use, beadwork remains a living tradition and a sacred

art in South Africa today.

6 7

The 8th Definitive Behind the scenes

On 15 February 2005, the Stamp Advisory Committee approved the

topic ‘South African Beadwork’ as the theme for the country’s 8th

Definitive series of stamps. The committee agreed that photographs

of beadwork instead of artwork would be used to illustrate the stamps,

since beadwork is an artform in its own right.

The first tender process started in April 2006, with 29 photographers

submitting tenders. The second tender process started in June 2008,

with 11 photographers participating.

On 8 August 2008, Sascha Lipka, was informed that he had

won the tender and was commissioned to take photographs of

the selected beadwork items. These were chosen in July 2008, in

collaboration with the Iziko Museum. They are from the collection

8 9

of the South African Museum of Social History, the Schultz Collection

and the Iziko Collection in Cape Town.

Between 3 and 21 November 2008, Lipkin took a total of 332

photographs for the project we. He spent between 75 and 120 hours

taking the photographs and between 30 and 40 hours for cleaning-up

and colour enhancement of the images before delivery to Philatelic

Services.

All stakeholders in the various sections of the Post Office were

involved in deciding on the different stamp values. Provision has

been made for possible new future values. Designs for such values

have already been completed and are ready to be used at any

stage. They are shown in the last chapter of this book.

During their first discussions around this stamp issue, the Stamp

Advisory Committee decided that beaded jewellery and clothing

items should be treated as stand-alone artwork instead of being

worn by models. For this reason, the photographer was briefed to

approach the subject from an abstract perspective.

Through many trial layouts, it was determined that the small

stamp format lent itself best to photographs focusing on selected

details of a particular item, instead of images of entire items. The use

of different background colours was discussed, but it was decided

that these would distract from the colourful beadwork. To make the

stamp values easily recognisable, it was decided to place each

value against a coloured square so that counter personnel could

distinguish between the different values with ease.

All stamps sold in booklet form are in portrait format to ensure

that they display upright in the self-adhesive booklets. If they were in

landscape format, the stamps would lie on their sides in the booklet.

10 11

Beaded wire work figures

Introduction

Beaded wire work figurines and other objects have their origins in

children’s toys made out of scraps of wire. South Africa has a long

history of producing metal wire to embellish prestige objects in

hand-drawn iron, copper and even gold wire.

The glass-bead trade is also of great antiquity; combining the

two to produce luminous objects is a contemporary innovation. Men,

women and children create ingenious little sculptures themed on

the everyday life of rural and urban areas of South Africa.

12 13

5c

Ladybird

A beautiful insect and destroyer of parasites is transformed by

the imagination of a wire and beadwork artist from South Africa.

Wirework was the domain of men and boys, but now women and

girls embellish these forms with glass beads imported from Asia to

create works of art.

Actual size of stamp: 26.1 x 36 mm

SOU

TH

AFR

ICA 5c

Sascha Lipka 2010Beadwork lady bird • Iziko collection

34 35

NeckpiecesIntroduction

Small beadwork rectangles were worn around the neck on strings and

ribbons of beads. They were made by young women of marriageable

age for their admirers, to whom they were sent as tokens of love by

messengers. Depending on their colour and composition, motifs

worked into the beaded tab would represent encoded messages

expressing the feelings and desires of the maker. As a consequence,

ornaments of this type came to be known as “love letters”. However, it is

almost impossible for outsiders to decode the secret information thus

conveyed, as the symbolic” language” of these personal messages

differed across space and through time.

36 37

Standard PostageZulu neck piece

Zulu love tokens differ in form and design. They carry deeply person-

al messages expressed in symbolic motifs and

colours. Made in the 20th century from Venetian

glass beads, this , called isibhebhe was worked in

brick stitch by a young isi- Zulu-speaking woman as

a gift for her suitor. Accep- tance of the love token

implied that marriage negotiations could commence. Over time, the

colours, designs, form and size of beads have changed.

Act

ual s

ize

of s

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6.1

x 36

mm

SOUTH AFRICA

StandardPostage

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62 63

Aprons

Decorative body and leg ornaments

Hand bags

Fertility Dolls

64 65

R2Tsonga fertility figure

Mwana is the Tsonga name for a child-like fertility figure presented

to a young Tsonga woman on the occasion of her coming of age

ceremony. The figure’s cylindrical form is filled with ritual substances

and dressed in beaded finery and a ceremonial xipereta skirt. The

owner keeps the figure until marriage in the hope that she too will

bear many children.

The Tsonga people originate from the north-eastern parts of South

Africa and speak Xitsonga, a North Nguni dialect.

Actual size of stamp: 26.1 x 36 mm

SOU

TH

AFR

ICA R2

Sascha Lipka 2010Fertility figure, Tsonga • Iziko collection

88 89

STeel PINS

MeDICINe CoNTAINeRS

90 91

Commemorative cover 8.1

Xhosa blanket pin

Xhosa men and women traditionally used decorative beadwork

blanket pins in different ways. Men used them to tie cloaks or blan-

kets and women as decorative additions for shoulder wraps, called

umbhaco. White, black and deep turquoise glass beads define the

simple geometric style of Xhosa beadwork from the 20th century.

106 107

Beadwork earrings

Introduction

This set of postcards, issued as part of the 8th definitive series, depict

circular beadwork earrings and ornaments. Originally imported

from Venice, glass ‘seed beads’ now sourced from China or Japan,

are used by women beadwork artists to create extraordinary items

of adornment.

Earrings were worn mainly by young isiXhosa-speaking

men who continue to dress up in many layers of beaded finery

to attend intlombe dances, where they socialise with women of

marriageable age.

108 109

PostcardsXhosa earrings

Young Xhosa men wore copious amounts of beadwork in the 20th

century. Much of it was made by female relatives or admirers. Bead-

work earrings could be worn draped over the ears, or tied on blan-

kets or other ornaments as the imagination of the wearer dictated.

This brass-wire, beaded and threaded examples were collected in

the Eastern Cape in the mid 20th century.

118 119

CoSMeTIC HolDeRS

SNuFF BoxeS

120 121

AerogrammesSan tortoise shell

cosmetic containers

The San have a history of great antiquity. Evidence of their wide-

spread occupation of southern Africa abounds in archaeological

sites. It is understood from research that San descend from the gene

pools of the earliest modern humans who evolved in southern Africa.

Until, recently their successful hunter-gatherer lifestyle had existed un-

challenged for many thousands of years. In the last two millennia,

it was gradually eroded, first by competing pastoral agriculturalists

and ultimately by industrialised societies. Hunting and foraging sur-

vivors were pushed into the extremely marginalised regions of the

sub-continent such as the Kalahari Desert.

130 131

Items for possible future

use

ApronscollarsSTeel PINSMeDICINe

CoNTAINeRS

132 133

ApronsIntroduction

Beadwork aprons were worn by women and girls all over South Af-

rica until recently as part of daily regalia. Made by close female

relatives, they functioned as indispensable items of modesty, for

coming of age ceremonies or as marriage aprons. Incorporating

glass beads and other materials such as string or fibre, these intimate

garments are now valued as exquisite, visually complex works of art.

Their range of styles, motifs and colours attests to the diversity of cul-

tures in South Africa.

166

1st DefinitiveIssue date: 31 May 1961

2nd DefinitiveIssue date: 20 November 1974

3rd DefinitiveIssue date: 27 May 1977

4th DefinitiveIssue date: 15 July 1982

5th DefinitiveIssue date: 1 September 1988

6th DefinitiveIssue date: 3 September 1993

7th DefinitiveIssue date: 1 November 2000

8th DefinitiveIssue date: 27 October 2010

The highest value

of each definitive

set is represented.

Visual History of the Definitives