LDUEC-I.0035

Content Warning: This essay contains images of racist language that have been included to illustrate historical documents as well as the colonial frame of museum collecting and curation. We do not condone the use of this language. 

In the UCL Ethnography Collection, one can find object I.0035, a beaded Zulu girdle from South Africa that belonged to a young girl. It is unclear exactly how the object entered the museum. It probably originates from the collection of musician A.J. Hipkins, and was donated between the 1940s and 1986, potentially by Hipkins’ daughter (Davis et al. 2021, p.50). The girdle is made of glass beads of four colors and plant fibres (Davis et al. 2021, p.18). It is estimated to have been produced between 1860-1920, when such European beads were acquired by the Zulu from colonial settlers (Davis et al. 2021, p.50; Nettleton, 2014, p.342).  

Beadwork in Zulu culture communicates complex identities, in terms of socioeconomic status, region, age, gender, and marital status (Boram-Hays, 2005). This object could be an “isigege”, a girdle worn by young women which indicates readiness for marriage (Magwaza, 2002, p.195). 

The study of this object can reveal how racial differences were constructed in South Africa in the 19th-20th centuries. For colonisers, Zulu beadwork became part of “the spectacle of the savage native”, and its removal a condition for conversion by missionaries (Nettleton, 2014, pp.349,356). From the end of the 19th century, Zulu people used beadwork to express their identity and resist domination (Nettleton, 2014, p.357).  

Furthermore, the object’s label contains a racial slur, which is nowadays prohibited in South Africa. This Arabic word originally referred to non-Muslim Africans, but Dutch and British settlers used it to refer to ‘indigenous’ elements, classify Black people as an “inferior race,” and discriminate against them (Arndt, 2018, p.59). 

Therefore, the object evokes a history of deep-rooted racial politics in South Africa, and its eventual mobilisation during apartheid, one of the worst crimes against humanity. 

These ideas were mobilised through the development of segregation policies that aimed for the subordination of people of colour after the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 (Ross, 2008, p.92). Two important measures were The Natives Land Act, 1913, which defined Black rural reserves, and The Immorality Act, 1927, which forbade sexual relations between whites and non-white people (Ross, 2008, p.95; Dubow, 2010 p.278). 

Segregation culminated in the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner National Party, who adopted apartheid - "separateness”- as their official policy (Ross, 2008, p.123). Apartheid aimed to create a monopoly of power for whites by separating them from non-whites, with segregationist measures controlling all aspects of life. The Population Registration Act, 1950, required that all citizens are classified into racial groups: White, Black, Coloured, and later Asian. These categories were frozen through the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, and Immorality Amendment Act, 1950, which forbade marriages and sex between "white people” and “non-white” people (Posel, 2011, p.334-335). Soon followed so-called “‘petty apartheid’’ measures, like the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, 1953, which enabled public premises and services to be racially segregated. In the 1950s, a job reservation policy secured specific jobs for whites people, while schools and other educational institutions became segregated with the Bantu Education Act, 1953 (Posel, 2011, pp.340-357). 

Segregation was materialised on a large scale spatially through “grand apartheid”, the division of the country into “national groups” (Ross, 2008, p.126). The Group Areas Act, 1950, divided cities; non-white people were given less developed land and moved to townships. Mixed communities, like District Six in Cape Town, were destroyed (Posel, 2011, p.342). Movement of non-white people in cities was regulated, and they were required to carry a “reference book” showing their residence and employment (Ross, 2008, p.129). During Verwoerd' prime ministership (1958-66), the strategy of separate development dictated that each African group should become a nation with a distinct self-governed homeland/bantustan. The Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act, 1959, set the way for ten such bantustans to be created (Posel, 2011, p.341). Bantustans had local leaders that were subordinate to the government, and their residents lost their South African citizenship. Inside, extreme poverty prevailed (Ross, 2008, pp.145-146).