Ndebele Beadwork

Focuses on the importance of beadwork in the lives of Africa's Ndebele people. Includes instructions for making a Ndebele doll.

Traditional bead work is fascinating and a great craft to learn. Many ethnic groups in Africa and all over the world are proud of their beading crafts. It’s a wonderful way of keeping the stories of the past alive. As time goes on the younger generations lose interest in their traditions and crafts, which is sad as one wonders if these crafts will eventually become something of the past – lost and forgotten.

Rather than reserving the teaching of Black history to Black history month, Black narratives deserve to be seen and integrated into every aspect of the school curriculum. A unique yet practical resource, Global Black Narratives for the Classroom addresses this issue by providing primary teachers with a global outline of Black history, culture and life within the framework of the UK’s National Curriculum. Each topic explored in this essential book provides teachers and teaching assistants with historical, geographic and cultural context to build confidence when planning and teaching. Full lesson plans and printable worksheets are incorporated into each topic, alongside tips to build future lessons in line with the themes explored. Volume II of this book explores the following parts: Part 1 guides teachers through planning and delivering lessons focused on Africa. Pupils will benefit from developing a diverse and accurate understanding of the changing nature of Africa throughout history, linking the continent’s social history with its geographical features. Part 2 ‘The Caribbean’, builds upon the lesson plans of Part 1 to further highlight the interconnectedness of diaspora cultures in influencing the musical, visual and religious practices of the Caribbean and Central America. Part 3 begins by addressing the incorrect assumption that the history of Black people in the Americas begins and ends with plantation slavery. Instead, this section proposes a range of in-depth lesson plans on the diverse histories, cultures and experiences of Black people within the United States. Created by BLAM UK, this highly informative yet practical resource is an essential read for any teacher, teaching assistant or senior leader who wishes to diversify their curriculum and address issues of Black representation within their school.

A former professor and museum director offers a fascinating, in-depth look at the culture and history of beaded objects around the world. From a beaded dress found in an ancient Egyptian tomb to the beaded fringe on a 1920s Parisian flapper’s hem, humans throughout history have used beading as a way to express, adorn, and tell a story. Bol explores beadwork across the world and through the ages, showing how beading has taken on many different styles, forms, and purposes for different cultures. She looks at children’s clothing, puberty ceremonies, burials, emblems of social status and leadership, festivals, and many other cultural occasions that involve the use of beadwork. Images of artifacts and heirlooms as well as photography of people and their beadwork enhance the scholarship of this book for a beautiful, enlightening addition to art, history, multicultural collections everywhere.

The purpose of the edited volume is to provide an international lens to examine evidence-based investigations in Ethno-STEM research: Ethno-science, Ethno-technology, Ethno-engineering, and Ethno-mathematics. These themes grew out of multi-national, multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary efforts to preserve as well as epitomize the role that Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) play in cognitive development and its vital contributions to successful and meaningful learning in conventional and non-conventional contexts. Principled by the Embodied, Situated, and Distributed Cognition (ESDC), this innovative book will provide evidence supporting the embeddedness of a thinking-in-acting model as a fundamental framework that explains and supports students’ acquisition of scientific knowledge. So often ‘western’ science curricula are experienced as irrelevant, since it does not take cognizance of the daily experiences and world in which the learner finds himself. This book takes a socio-cultural look at IKS and applies research in neuroscience to make a case its incorporation in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) classroom. We use the Embodied Situated Distributed Cognition (ESDC) Model as conceptual framework in this book. Although the value of IKS is often acknowledged in curriculum policy documents, teachers are most often not trained in incorporating IK in the classroom. Teachers’ lack of the necessary pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in effectively incorporating IK in their classrooms is a tremendous problem internationally. Another problem is that IK is often perceived as “pseudo-science”, and scholars advocating for the incorporation of IK in the school curriculum often do not contextualize their arguments within a convincing theoretical and conceptual framework.

Written by an international team of experts, this is the first work of its kind to offer comprehensive coverage of folklore throughout the African continent. Over 300 entries provide in-depth examinations of individual African countries, ethnic groups, religious practices, artistic genres, and numerous other concepts related to folklore. Featuring original field photographs, a comprehensive index, and thorough cross-references, African Folklore: An Encyclopedia is an indispensable resource for any library's folklore or African studies collection. Also includes seven maps.

Ndebele - A People & Their Art is a beautifully illustrated study of the Ndebele and their distinctive art culture. Exceptional photography and insightful text have combined to make this a fascinating and visually exciting work that will have great appeal for all those with an interest in the tribal cultures of southern Africa and of the Ndebele in particular. Endowed with a rich creativity, Ndebele women have developed an art culture of remarkable ingenuity and vitality which has established their tribal grouping as Africa's artist nation. In their beadwork and in the large murals that cover the walls of their traditional mud dwellings - many of which are unusually innovative in their planning and construction - the Ndebele women have created bold, often symbolic, designs and images that are at one ancient and modern in their simplicity, colour and mode of representation. The traditional dress of Ndebele women is equally striking and dramatic, as are their beadwork and adornments. But the artistic achievements of the Ndebele are not the sole focus of the work. Equal emphasis is placed on an understanding of the historical, social and political background against which Ndebele art emerged and has flourished.

In the popular imagination, Homer as author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, epitomises poetic genius. So, when scholars proposed that the Homeric epics were not the unique creation of an individual author, but instead reflected a traditional compositional system developed by generations of singer-poets, swathes of assumptions about the poems and their 'author' were swept aside and called into question. Much had to be re-evaluated through a new lens. The creative process described by scholars for the Homeric epics shares many key attributes with the modern visual art-forms of collage and its less familiar variant: sculptural assemblage. A Homeric Catalogue of Shapes describes a series of twelve sculptures that together function as an abstract portrait of Homer: not a depiction of him as an individual, but as a compositional system. The technique by which the artworks were produced reflects the poetic method that scholars termed oral-formulaic. In both of these creative processes the artwork is constructed from pre-existing elements: such as phrases, characters, and plot-lines in the epics; and objects, fragmented items, and borrowed forms in the sculptures. The artist/author presents a largely unknown characterisation of Homeric poetics in a manner that emphasizes the extent and complexity of this Homer's artistry.