Clothing is a bundle of cultural symbols that has been dealt withsomewhat eclectically and indiscriminately in the anthropological wash.Some writers have speculated on the origins of clothing, stressing suchqualities in human nature as modesty and vanity; others, more materiallyoriented, have emphasized utility; others again have listed separategarments, the materials of which they were made, and the techniquesemployed; and some have paid attention to broader historical and sociological dimensions. In a pioneering study, Kroeber used documentary evidence to correlate fluctuations in women's fashions (using indices of skirt length, width of waist, and depth of decolletage) with major social and political upheavals (Kroeber, 1919, 1940), but perhaps because of the nature of his data, as well as his particular orientation, he made no reference to the persons involved, and overlooked internal cultural variations and conflicts of style. These issues received more attention from scholars trained in the Malinowski tradition of fieldwork, and they described clothing worn by different persons in different situations; those who worked in areas where people of different cultures were brought in contact in the colonial situation indicated the meaning of changes in style of clothing over time. General textbooks draw attention to the correlation between clothing and social status and to such facts as the cost of clothing, its technology and its aesthetics.

This article indicates the complexity of the social relations of whites and Africans in Southern Africa and the myths by which they rationalise their behaviour.1 The situation is not identical throughout Southern Africa, but there are, as I will show, certain fundamental similarities which validate an over-all analysis in terms of a ‘colonial situation’.2

Each of the countries of Southern Africa (the Republic of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, the three British High Commission territories of Swaziland, Bechuanaland, and Basutoland, and the Portuguese provinces of Mozambique and Angola) represents a distinct political unit, expressing in its constitution the limits of control and participation permitted to groups which are distinguished according to so-called ‘racial’, ‘ethnic’, or ‘cultural’ differences. There has been a major distinction, explicit in some countries, disguised in others, between a dominant white minority and a subordinate African majority, a division corresponding to the ‘colonisers’ or ‘colonials’ on the one hand, and the ‘colonised’ on the other. But now Nyasaland has become independent Zambia, and Northern Rhodesia will achieve independence in October 1964.

Princess Bahashule, daughter of the late King Bunu, was close on thirty and not yet married. No one, however, thought of calling her a saliwakati (unwanted woman). Late marriage was the privilege of her rank and Bunu's eldest daughter Ladluli was also single. This had not prevented them from having lovers; indeed Bahashule already had a child by a commoner. Both Bahashule's own parents were dead, and she lived at Zombodze, the former capital of the Swazi nation. She was on good terms with Sobhuza, the king (her half-brother), and the ruling queen-mothrr (her ‘big mother’) and frequently came to stay with them.

Towards the end of every year Swazi from the Swaziland Protectorate and from beyond its borders come to the capital, the home of the Indlovukati (Queen-Mother), to take part in the dominant national ceremony, the Incwala. I will analyse this in some detail from the angle of social stratification. Cook, Schoeman, and Marwick have described the Incwala, but their accounts are very incomplete, nor can I accept their interpretations.

The Incwala can be abstracted from Swazi culture, in the same way as any other situation—a marriage, a court case, a business agreement, the building of a hut, &c., but it has a wider and more representative personnel, and Swazi recognize it as the most important of all national ceremonies, and the most essential event of the year. Personal joys and tragedies, the birth of a child, or the death of a loved one affect individual men and women, but the Incwala ‘is the heavy play of all the people’.