African Head Scarf Views
Although the African American woman sometimes ties the fabric at the nape of the neck, her form of styling always leaves her forehead and neck exposed; and, by leaving her face open, the headwrap visually enhances the facial features. The African American headwrap thus works as a regal coronet, drawing the onlooker's gaze up, rather than down. In effect, African and African American women wear the headwrap as a queen might wear a crown. In this way the headwrap corresponds to African and African American women's manner of hair styling, wherein the hair is pulled so as to expose the forehead and is often drawn to a heightened mass on top of the head. In striking comparison, the scarf worn by white women emulates the way in which the hair of people of European ancestry naturally grows: falling downward and often arranged to cover the forehead.
Another outstanding difference between the two ways of wearing the head- wrap is that, in contrast to the singular manner by which white women wrap their hair in fabric, African American women exhibit a seemingly endless repertoire of elaborations on the basic mode. One of the earliest extant group photographs of southern African Americans provides striking evidence for this very improvisation on the squared swatch of cloth. In the photo, taken in the early 1860s, the headwraps crafted by both black women and men are far more ornamental than the simple Euro American scarf. Most important, the photo shows twelve newly "freedi" African Americans wearing headwraps in twelve different ways; none, however, tied below the head.
African women wear a long scarf of beautiful cotton fabric wrapped around their heads. This fabric wrap is called a gele. Geles are about 5 feet long and 2 feet wide. Modern women, both in Europe and the U.S., often have their dressmaker make a dress and gele from the the same fabric to create a stunningly elegant outfit for special occasions. There are several ways to wrap a gele to achieve different looks.
An African headscarf, or head wrap, is a colorful, bold wrap that women place over the hair. Women wear them to help protect their head in hot climates, as a fashion accessory or as a religious statement. According to Patrick Smith in History of the Scarf, the scarf dates to ancient Rome when men used them to wipe their face and brow, and early Chinese noblemen wore the scarf as a mark of rank. Today, Orthodox Jewish women and Muslims sometimes wear a headscarf to cover their hair as a part of their religion.
African Head Scarf Images
