Xhosa beadwork from East London Museum

During my time at home in East London, I had visited the East London museum to get some information about the Xhosa people. I had an interesting conversation with one of the anthropologists from the museum, who gave me a lot of historical facts concerning the Xhosa people especially their beadwork. 

Ndongeni, S. (2019). Xhosa beadwork Exhibition. 

 The display in figure 1 forms part of several displays that are dedicated to exhibiting Xhosa beadwork. I have also included a closeup picture of the painting which was placed above the display as it shows drawings of Xhosa people wearing their jewellery.

 

As I will be using Xhosa bridal narrative as one of the bases for my chapter 3, it is important to understand some of the relevant Xhosa beadworks in terms of how they have used it in order to express their various narratives.
I will be discussing these under the headings listed below. 

a.       Which Issues are they addressing in their beadwork?

b.       How do they deal with them?

                                 i.      Which materials have they used and why?

                                  ii.            Which Techniques have they used?

                                iii.            What kind of Imagery and symbolism have theyused?

c.       How is their work similar to mine?