Zulu Beaded Breastplate

FACTS:

Colours & geometric shapes are encoded with symbolism.

SHAPES

• A triangle shape facing downwards signifies an unmarried woman, while a diamond shape represents a married woman.
• A triangle facing upwards signifies an unmarried man & a married man is represented by an hourglass.

COLOURS – the colours used can have positive or negative meanings

• Green: Contentment, domestic bliss / Illness, discord
• Blue: Faithfulness, request / Ill feeling, hostility
• Red: Physical love, strong emotion / Anger, heartache, impatience
• Black: Marriage / Death, sorrow
• Yellow: Weatlh, garden, fertility / Badness, thirst, withering away
• Pink: Promise, high status / Poverty, laziness
• White: Purity, spiritual love, virginity, hope (It is unique among the bead colours because it is the only colour that carries strictly positive connotations & has no associated negative meanings).