African Women 
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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Fashioning Sexuality: Desire, Manyema Ethnicity, and the Creation of the 'Kanga', ca. 1880-1900 |
| Author: | McCurdy, Sheryl |
| Year: | 2006 |
| Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
| Volume: | 39 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 441-469 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Tanzania |
| Subjects: | ethnic identity culture contact female dress female elite social history 1880-1889 1890-1899 History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Women's Issues Ethnic and Race Relations |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/40034826 |
| Abstract: | Drawing from Swahili texts and the accounts of explorers, travellers and missionaries, the author argues that the 'kanga' - an elaborately patterned rectangular piece of cloth which developed into the iconic cloth as it is known today - came to symbolize the power of an African community with origins in central Africa and embody notions of Manyema ethnicity, an ethnicity that emerged after Zanzibari traders expanded their frontier into the central African area northwest of Ujiji, destroying existing communities in the process. Despite this devastation, elements of the indigenous groups moved east across Lake Tanganyika where they forged a new identity as Manyema. Manyema ethnicity grew from forged notions of community - the result of the fusion of common associational practices of spirit possession and 'unyago' (an association/rite of womanhood with teachings about the life cycle: puberty, marriage, birth), elite notions and practices of fashion and beauty, rumours surrounding their ferocity, and elements of their courage and freedom. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
