african headwrap

My love for African Head Wraps

African Print/Wax Head Wraps

Tying a piece of cloth around the head is not specific to any one culture. In my home country of Uganda, we wear our headwraps the same way a queen would wear her crown. Something like a regal coronet, drawing the onlookers gaze up, never down. Since the days of ancient Egypt and Nubia, headwraps have been worn by both African men and women. Historians even say hieroglyphic evidence shows pharaohs wearing head coverings or bands made of various material. Each material symbolizing a specific meaning. While some cultures used the headwraps as a simple way of keeping hair tamed from elements of nature, others wore the headwrap as a symbol of African pride and heritage. All over the continent, headwraps have been adorned to represent ones social/economic/marital or spiritual status. In most cases, one would wear the wraps to visually enhance their beauty! Headwraps have been called various names, in various regions, by various cultures for various reasons all over the african continent. In Nigeria, headwraps are known as gele, doek in (South Africa) and (Namibia), dhuku (in Zimbabwe), tuku/tukwi (in Botswana) duku in (Malawi and Ghana) and chitambala (in Zambia and Uganda) and many other different names!
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This page was built by Florence Kababwiju