Accessories out of Africa
Today, I pay homage to African women and their accessories, which Angela Fisher discovered in 1984 and deemed worthy enough to be featured in National Geographic magazine. They are of varied materials and have served as a form of communication, evidence of social status, trophies from battles and presents of admiration. There are bracelets of gold from West Africa, plant fiber necklaces from Samburu and Phuket in Kenya, glass trade beads from Vienna of the 16th century traded in for slaves like those found in the Mountain Province, tiny beads of the Yoruba for a Nigerian king’s crown, brass wires on a Sudanese woman’s neck, a gold mask from the Baquide, Ivory Coast.
Jewelry has served as family heirlooms worn by grandparents and symbolic of their owners through their shape, color and design. Besides, ornaments are public representation of ideas, kinship and rituals. Ethnic diversity, a bride’s wealth, themes of kinship and unity, a celebration of life, art and tradition.
Today in the Philippines we have mere recreations of our cultures. Suffice it to say that what we had are now in the hands of private collectors, safe and warm.
