IDNO

P.7392.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: Woman wearing Ipasi. cf. card in museum
No. 38.886 -87.

Place

S Africa; South Africa; KwaZulu-Natal; Durban [Natal]

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Natal Mercury, Durban

Collector / Expedition

Date

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Related Object: "Necklace - A green "Ipasi". [Pencil note: collar piece]. See also Afr.S.En.Ban.81. Haddon Photo. Colln. [For full details see letter 9/9/37. Schofield]. "It is the custom for native boys to leave their kraals and find work either in the towns or in the mines in order to ?earn enough to pay for the cattle with which the 'lobolo' is paid to the prospective father-in-law. The waiting maiden sends her absent swain an Ipasi to remind him of their plighted troth. In the green Ipasi she tells him that her head is full of love (the white beads) so much so that his head is like water where she is concerned, (the blue beads along the upper edges) but that he (the central figure in green) is so poor that he has no cattle at all, for is there not grass all over his cattle pen? The red beads at the lower corners represent the girl herself as being united to her beloved. The story of true love overborn by poverty is reflected in the neck band, where the black and red beads are the lover and his lass".
Duplicate catalogue card reads: Green 'Ipasi'. A tubular short necklace of green beads with 2 large red beads at either end, to which is attached a square of white beadwork which has in the centre a capital I in green. Two large black beads at one edge. Blue bead edge on one side at top. ?Natal." [from Object Record 1938.886, JD 16/08/2018]

Related Object: "Ornament - A white "Ipasi". See card 1938.886 for fuller details. [Pencil note: breast piece]. "The white Ipasi shows that the girl's feelings are deeply engaged, particularly the way in which the red beads are placed in the neck-band. The black traingles are the boy's heart, and the red - the girl's, while the red and black between the white lines indicates that their love is complete and mutual. The lovers appear again in the knots of beads at the lower corners. The triangle may also mean that the boy already has a cow and a bull towards his lobolo, and/or that his head is so completely turned by her charms that his feet cannot leave her kraal". [from Object Record 1938.887, JD 16/08/2018]