Traditional Costumes 3.1 WORLD
Which traditional costume of women of the Herero ethnic group in Namibia is directly inspired by the dresses of German missionaries of the 19th century and is completed with a headdress in the shape of cow horns?
75% of players answered correctly.
THE CORRECT ANSWER: The Herero dress
The dress of Herero women in Namibia is a fascinating historical paradox, born from a painful colonial past. In the 19th century, the wives of Rhineland missionaries, shocked by the local nudity, imposed long Victorian-style dresses on native women.After surviving a terrible genocide orchestrated by the German army at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Herero people reappropriated this military and religious outfit as a symbol of resilience and cultural survival. Today, this voluminous dress is characterized by layered petticoats, puffed sleeves and a dramatic headdress of wrapped fabric, called an otjikaiva.This headdress forms two lateral points evoking the horns of cows, cattle being the economic and spiritual pillar of Herero culture. Wearing this heavy and colorful dress under the African sun is an act of supreme identity pride.