Thursday 28 March 2013
The Zulu tribe of South Africa use beaded messages to communicate with their lovers. They achieve this by using symbols and colours that act as language and grammer that is deeply embedded in their culture.
I described in my last post the importance of the triangle shape and its position in beadwork. The colours used are another important way of communicating. Each colour has positive and negative meanings depending on how they are used within the beadwork. For example green in its postive context means contentment and bliss but the negative meaning is illness. Below is a list of colours with their positive and negative meanings.
Positive Negative
A popular item of zulu beadwork exchanged between lovers is the Zulu love letter.
Zulu maidens bead special messages of love and affection and give it to their lovers. The boys wear them around their neck or pinned to their clothing. Each colour conveys a different meaning.
Red - Intense love
White - Purity and peace
Yellow - Jealousy
Green - I pine for you
Black - I am in depair as you have rejected my love
Blue - If I were a dove, I would fly to see you
Pink - Do you love me?
How do you communicate with your lover? Do you have a special language that is only known between the two of you?
Today many love letter pins are sold to the tourist trade and made to represent the flags of countries or to mark a special occasion.
Until next time,
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