Producer unknown to us
Headband
Africa, Namibia
Presumably late 19th / early 20th century
Iron beads, leather, plant fiber, threaded and sewed
Collector and acquisition context unknown to us
P 265
Valuables such as this iron bead headband were a status symbol for married Ovaherero women in what is now Namibia. Iron beaded and decorated clothing, or iron bead jewelry such as this headband used to fasten a leather bonnet on the wearer's head, were a symbol of a woman's family's wealth.
In response to the resistance of the Ovaherero and Nama to the German occupation of what is now Namibia, more than 80,000 people were dispossessed, starved, transported to concentration camps, or murdered on the spot by the Germans after 1904.
Therefore, in the museum, there are also several personal items of women unknown to us from that time. This headband, thus, represents how people in the German colonial civil service deliberately made the identities and biographies of people who were perceived as female invisible through expropriation.
Furthermore, the headband's original inventory number was lost during its time in the museum, making it impossible to trace its original collection context. How can we then make the biographies of these people of resistance visible again?
Stefanie Bach