Royal ceremonial headdress (umnqwazi) (1800s): Art, History and Details

Royal ceremonial headdress (umnqwazi) (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Elite Xhosa women once wore beaded garments like this on festive occasions. Made almost completely from imported Venetian or Bohemian glass beads, they were overt status symbols. Imported beads functioned as money for the Xhosa between circa 1770 and 1829. These garments’ female maker carefully selected beads of the highest quality, uniform in color, shape, and size. Made in the same shape as the pendant, a swallowtail-shaped apron (CMA 2010.206) worn under the skirt completed the ensemble.

Object facts

• Title: Royal ceremonial headdress (umnqwazi)
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Africa, Southern Africa, South Africa, Southeast Cape Region, Unknown female Xhosa-style maker(s)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Glass beads, sinew, and hide
• Dimensions: Overall: 64.1 x 27.6 cm (25 1/4 x 10 7/8 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 2022.49.a

A detail from the museum

The beads to make an ensemble like this cost several cattle in the early 1800s, an amount most couldn't afford.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Van Wyk, Gary. “Illuminated Signs. Style and Meaning in the Beadwork of the Xhosa- and Zulu-Speaking Peoples.” African Arts 36, no. 3 (2003): 12–94. Fig. 7a.
• Pemberton, John. African Beaded Art: Power and Adornment. Northampton, Mass: Smith College Museum of Art, 2008.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.