Adornment & Regalia Artifacts

Nagaland, before the road came. A warrior’s standing showed in brass, shell and hornbill feather. Tribal adornment and regalia run from those hill villages to the grasslands of Cameroon. Ladakhi women wore the perak, a long headdress studded with turquoise. In Central Sulawesi chieftains wore the sanggori, a curved serpent-form ornament whose polished brass was said to blind enemies and drive off demons. Zulu married women wore the flared isicholo hat. Bamileke and Bamum dignitaries wore the ashetu, knotted from hemp in the old technique of knotless knitting and sewn with cowries and trade beads.

Cast bronze armbands of the Dogon and Kotoko. Lobi and Bambara iron. Kasena hairpins, Omo Valley hair picks, Bamana chiwara antelope headdresses. One world of rank and ornament, the metal softened where it lay against skin for years. Mount a headdress on a stand before a limewashed wall, or gather armbands in a turned walnut bowl. Sculpture, though nobody asked it to be.