Elaborate hairstyling, Congo, ca. 1900-1915

Black and white lantern slide showing three women with elaborate, braided hair styles. Hair styling was used among Luba women to encode memory about a person's history, status and occupation. One woman has a chin length braided style with a raised comb of hair across the top of her head. The woman in the centre of the image has a shorter braided style to ear length, and the youngest of the group has two long, matted braids. The older women in the group also bear geometric scarification marks (notably on their chins). Scarification was a process in which small scars were inflicted and their healing controlled in order to create patterns. The practice was common in Africa to denote status, history, ethnic group and beauty. For women, the ability to bear the pain of scarification was seen as a sign of the ability to endure the dangers of childbirth. The patterns were also seen as a mark of socialisation that marked humankind above the animal kingdom. Each women wears a short necklace around her neck. This slide comes from a collection generated by missionaries working for the Congo Balolo Mission, a mission begun in 1889 under the supervision of the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions that developed into the interdenominational evangelical mission Regions Beyond Missionary Union after 1900.