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!
Learn more about Headwraps