History of Xhosa attire
I HAVE a morbid fascination for all things cultural, literally and figuratively.
So the enterprising feature on the traditional Xhosa bride "New brides lend beauty to dignified Xhosa rite" did not escape my attention.
The central motif of the Xhosa makoti attire is the knee-long dress known as iJeremani or isishweshwe by locals. It was introduced into the Xhosa kingdom by King Sarili, a few years after the cattle killing of 1856/7.
This symbolic textile became part of the Xhosa culture through cultural diffusion.
King Sarili had spotted the wives of the German protestants whose husbands were rewarded with land for volunteering to do battle at the 1856 Crimean War and ended up not seeing action despite months of training at camps in England.
These Germans who had secretly joined the legion could not return home as they would be charged with treason. The question was: what should be done with them once the war was over?
In Dr Keith Tankard's yet-to-be-published book Broken Promises he paints a picture of a distraught officer corps.
They had betrayed the motherland only to be betrayed themselves by the British, whose myriad promises were never fulfilled.
At about the same time, the Xhosa people had just emerged, bruised and battered, from the eighth frontier war – the War of Mlanjeni.
To compound their problems historian Jeff Cobbing suggests was the aftermath of the cattle killings of 1856/7 and the "failure of the harvests as well as the then colonial policy of depriving Xhosas of food and land".
Some of the German legionnaires, raring for action, left after a year in East London to fight in India.
In 1858, a second wave of German settlers arrived, mainly peasants with their wives. They were granted parcels of land that were taken from the Xhosa people.
In their farming exploits, aided by the Xhosa labourers, their ventures proved a success.
South Africa first encountered blue fabric when the German settlers arrived in 1858/9.
The settler women demanded to be dressed in the fabric to which they had become accustomed, prompting traders to import it.
This also resulted in the Xhosa women gradually replacing their animal skin garments with those made from newly available cotton.
The blue cloth was imported from Asia, mainly India, where a natural indigo dye was obtained from plants. Around 1890 a German factory developed a synthetic indigo dye that is still used today.
The production of indigo-dyed printed fabric in South Africa started in 1982 when Tootal, a UK-based company with all the necessary expertise, invested in Da Gama Textiles.
So-called German Print was then produced under the trademark of the Three Leopards, the South African version of the Three Cats trademark that was in production in Manchester, England.
At this time Tootal also introduced a range named Toto. Two new colours were added – a rich chocolate brown and a vibrant red.
In 1992, Da Gama bought the sole rights to own and print the Three Cats range of designs.
Da Gama still produces the original German print – known here as iJerimani, or isishweshwe – at their Zwelitsha factory.
The process still follows the traditional process whereby fabric is fed through copper rollers that have patterns etched on the surface, allowing a weak acid solution to be fed into the fabric, bleaching it and leaving the traditional white design. The fabric can easily be identified for its intricate all-over print and beautiful panels with animal, flower and traditional motifs.
Vukile Pokwana, East London.
