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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The 'Long' Dress and the Construction of Herero Identities in Southern Africa |
Author: | Hendrickson, Hildi |
Year: | 1994 |
Periodical: | African Studies |
Volume: | 53 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 25-54 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Botswana Namibia |
Subjects: | Herero female dress Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189408707800 |
Abstract: | This paper investigates the uses and meanings of the 'long' dress among Ovaherero in Namibia and Botswana. Long dress design, construction, and historical development are detailed, and the role of other Africans in the nineteenth-century adoption of the long dress is highlighted. The dress is found to mark women's transition to marriage and motherhood and to symbolize the responsibilities of adulthood and women's acquiescence to them. While physically constraining, and laborious to construct and maintain, the dress celebrates women as engenderers of highly valued, immutable social relationships. In it, women represent Herero society, 'traditionalism', and history within a wider, plural sociopolitical world. The paper is based on fieldwork carried out in Botswana and Namibia during the years 1987, 1988, and 1989. Notes, ref. |