The beadwork of the Ndebele people is as beautiful as it is distinctive, and patterns are derived from the geometric designs painted onto the fornts of their houses. Women are the suprerme Ndebele artists and design and paint the houses as well as creating the beadwork.
.
Like all south African tribes, the beadwork of the Ndebele is an immediate identifier of the age, sex and marital status of the wearer to anyone wo can read the "code". The Ndebele woman wears her social identity around her waist in the form of an intricately beaded apron, and there are several types.


1. iGabe (icharbee), a cache sexe worn by young girls  to puberty. isiGabe* come in all sizes from toddler to adult. They are made of a strip of beadwork (on cloth or hide) from which many hand twisted strings dangle to form a modesty screen. Each string is weighted with a large pony bead to make sure the iGabe does its job.


2. iPhepethu (perpertoo), a cache sexe for young iniitated women of marriagable age.
The phepethu is a stiff beaded rectangleof  hide or stiffened canvas which is as wide as the waist and abut 10 - 15 inches deep. The geometric designs are derived from the designs painted on the walls of Ndebele houses


3. iMopoto (mawpawtwo), the fringed apron of marriage. The mopoto is the traditional daily wear for all Ndebele married women. It was beaded onto a soft sheep or goat skin, though these days, canvas is often used. The distinctive area of a mopoto is the fringed central section at the bottom, and this immediately says "I am a married woman".


4. iJogolo (jawcholaw), the formal apron of marriage and motherhood. The jogolo is the glory of every Ndebele woman's beaded wardrobe. Traditionally made on a goat or sheep skin with every square inch of hide covered in beads, predominantly white, with colored accent patterns.
The jogolo traditionally has five beaded panels at the bottom - the one in the center representing the husband, the two on eiother side representing the children of the marriage, and the two outermost representing the cattle, which are the foundation of the family's wealth. (Some jogolo have seven panels, and the two smallest  on the outside are said to represent chickens or small livestock). The jogolo is worn for the first time on the wedding day, and thereafter only on formal special occasions. It represents "Sunday best", while the mopoto is the everyday garment.


Glass beads have become very expensive and for urban Ndeble women, who usually wear western dress, the opportunity to wear them is limited. For this reason, some urbanised women compromise by owning a very special and heavily beaded mopoto which is smart enough to be worn on special occasions, rather than owning both a mopoto and a jogolo.  This example is fully beaded like a jogolo, but has the central fringe of a mopoto at the bottom. Note the modern industrial lighting and steel roof used in the central design of this urban piece.


Like all South African tribal women, the Ndebele consider it far more important for modesty's sake to cover behind than in front. Every woman over the age of puberty wears a soft leather backskirt, often decorated with a row of beadwork at the top, and usually dyed black.


Beads are the ultimate Ndebele fashion statement . Imagine a woman of status on the day of the initiaiton of her son into manhood. In addition to the jopgolo skirt and backskirt, she could be wearing a fully beaded blanket as a cloak over her upper body, and a beaded headband encircling her head, from which two long beaded strips would drag on the ground behind her.
These are called iNyoka, or snakes, or sometimes "linga koba", meaning the long tears of a mother who is losing her son to the world of men. Her neck, arms and legs will be circled in heavy grass hoops covered in beadwork, called isiGolwane (isicholwarnee) and she might be carrying a beaded staff or dance stick. An impressive sight indeed!


Ndebele beaded dolls are famous, and the  genuine examples really are fertility symbols, made by a girl's mother when she marries to encourage her to have children soon. They were traditionally made of beaded coils like donuts. stacked one asove the other, with a round head. Full human figures based on western dolls were also sometimes made, but genuine examples made for ritual purpose are extremely rare. Most of the bead-and-wirework examples of all sizes one sees listed on eBay  as "Ndebele Fertility dolls" are tourist pieces.


Ndebele beadwork is exciting to collect because it is still a living art. In rural areas, the Ndebele still make and wear the gabe, mopoto and jogolo, and there are interesting evolutions. For example, colors change and go in and out of fashion. Before the 1960s, Ndebele beadwork had predominantly white backgrounds, but since the 1960s, black, green and dark blue predominate.  The icons too are subject to modernisation, and one example in my collection has modern industrial lighting fixtures as a motif.

Sadly, as tribal values decline and the Ndebele become more urbanised, glass beads are being abandoned in favour of cheaper plastic beads and even vinyl appliques - a process that is accellerated by the soaring cost of glass beads.  The good news is that quality Ndebele beadwork is still available at affordable prices and very collectable. You will find several fine examples in my ebay store and on the tribalartbrokers gallery web site.

Note, Ndebele is an Nguni langauge like Zulu and Xhosa.and the singular or plural prefix is part of the noun. So one Ndebele person = iNdebele, but the Ndebele people = amaNdebele.  Similarly, one iGabe but two isiGabe.

Bibliography
"amaNdebele", Vusi Mchungu (ed), Huas der Kuturen, Berlin, 1991 (English and German)
"Ndeble", Margaret Courney-Clarke, Rizzoli, New York, 1986
"Ndebele, a people and their art:, Ivor Powell. New Holland, 1995

See more fine Ndebele beadwork in my ebay store