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Lip Ornaments and the Domestication of Trade Goods: Fashion in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Central East Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2015

Andrea Felber Seligman
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Abstract

This article presents a history of sixteenth and seventeenth century central East African efforts to define elements of a regional fashion aesthetic, one supplied by their engaged participation in wider African and Indian Ocean world economies. I investigate regional artisanal economies in the central East African mainland, looking specifically at communities in what is now southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique and their uses of one of the most “exoticized” elements of their fashion: lip ornaments often called lip-plugs. Close readings of sixteenth and seventeenth century Portuguese accounts and historical linguistics evidence reveals a new history of developing regional fashion trends. Such a history underscores the importance of regional consumers and artisanal experts in shaping wider East African precolonial economies.

Résumé

Cet article retrace l’histoire des efforts des habitants de l’Afrique de l’Est centrale au XVIème et XVIIème siècles afin de produire les éléments distinctifs d’une esthétique régionale de la mode, cette dernière largement influencée par la participation active de ces sociétés locales dans les réseaux économiques plus larges de l’Afrique et de l’Océan indien. J’explore les économies artisanales de la partie intérieure centrale de l’Afrique orientale, en observant particulièrement les communautés situées dans ce qui est aujourd’hui la Tanzanie méridionale et le nord du Mozambique, et l’usage d’un de leurs éléments de mode les plus “exoticisés:” les ornements de lèvres, aussi dits plateaux ou disques labiaux. Une lecture attentive des documents portugais du XVIème et XVIIème siècles, ainsi que des analyses linguistiques, révèlent une nouvelle histoire de l’émergence de tendances décoratives régionales. Cette histoire souligne le rôle des consommateurs locaux et des experts artisanaux dans la production de larges tendances économiques en Afrique orientale précoloniale.

Type
Material Culture and Commerce in Precolonial Africa
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 357 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

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