Question about Mende women of West Africa

Factual Questions
1

I was greatly saddened to read about the passing of Maya Angelou this morning.

In reading the Wikipedia article about her, I noticed it mentioned in passing that she is believed to have been descended from the Mende people of West Africa.

I clicked on the hyperlink for the Mende, and read an account of their culture, including the linked page about their womens’ secret society, and the awesome helmet masks they wear.

Anyway, I then did a google image search to see what the women themselves look like, and I ran across these two pictures of strikingly beautiful women.

What I’m curious about is their braids, which seem to match their skin tone exactly. I’m wondering if that is clay on the braids, or a wrap of some kind, or something else?

2

We have a couple of helmet masks that we bought while in Mali, but couldn’t tell you what tribe they’re from. Like most things you buy in West Africa, they’re likely of modern make, but still pretty cool looking.

3

I think the girls in those pictures not only have clay in their hair, it looks like they have painted their skin with it too.

4

It’s called otjiz.
Read more here

5

The one picture I could see, in the second link, was a Himba woman, not Mende, so Southern Africa, not West (and just FYI, that’s more than 4000 kilometres difference, as the seagull flies).

And they cover both the skin and the hair with a mixture of butterfat and ochre clay, like PurpleClogs’ link shows.

6

Dibble is correct, both of your pictures are not of Mende and not from West Africa, they are Himba of Namibie and Angola. No relations or connexions.

7

Oh, sorry. I suspected that they might not be Mende women anyway – because how would you fit the fancy fur thing at the top of the hairstyle into a helmet mask? – but they showed up on the search results page.

Wow, that is some high-quality ochre. It would make an awesome artists’ pigment. Heck, it probably is. I mean besides the obvious artists who are using it in everyday life. You know, you can buy various paints called “ochre,” but I’ve never seen one that beautiful.

I shouldn’t be amazed anymore that people here can answer these seemigly obscure questions for me. Ha ha, but still! Dang! Thanks all!

8

Here is a link to a description of the place of the Mende in Sierra Leonean society, with some excellent pictures.http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/mende-people-sierra-leones-educated-and.html

Very interesting to me as I spent my childhood there, back in the day when it was British colony. Before independence, Milton Margai used to come to our house for dinner.

9

Remember that ochre used to be the pigment of ritual and adornment. The first evidence we have of modern human thought is ochre. If something is that important, you do it right.