Photo courtesy of Arts Connected Learning about the customs of other cultures has always been very interesting to me and I really wanted to find out more about the odd shape of the hats the women of the Zulu tribe wear. Women of all cultures have always taken great pride in their appearances and in the 19th century Zulu women created cone shaped upward coiffure designs. Over time it became fashionable to make removable hats. I found a wonderful web site Ezakwantu.com, which has a great number of photos showing the evolution of these hat designs. What I found most interesting was that the early hats had human hair woven into it, in order for the hat to remain as an extension of the individual’s head. Photo Courtesy of Ezakwantu.com The hat above was made from palm fiber, cord, fabric , hard board and human hair. Because of the basket style weaving technique there was no limit on how large the hat could be, so if bigger is better, Zulu women adopted some rather elaborate hat designs.
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