COSTUMES OF LIFE AND DEATH
Seen from the comfort of our self-proclaimed central position, post-colonial Africa is as remote and different as it ever was. The West is not aware of its complexities or, I would dare say, of its mere existence, blinded by a fictional version of History that only now is starting to crumble. But it is usually in its margins where culture develops its most fascinating creations. Africa was forged by blood and war, and even its fashion stands as living proof.
The Herero people of Namibia, as photographed by Jim Naughten for his new book and exhibition at the Margaret Street Gallery, London, come to us as the ghost from a long gone past. Men and women that stand tall against the desolate backdrop of the Namibian desert, in majestic and clean colours. An iconography that combines the British portrait tradition of the 19th Century with an aura close to that of the Immaculate Conception of the Spanish baroque.
The women wear dresses that went out of fashion in Europe more than a hundred years ago, the Victorian era-like gowns they were introduced to by German missionaries in the late 19th Century. The men proudly wear Prussian Army inspired uniforms. The children stand like the African version of Manet’s Fifer in their military regalia made out of cardboard cutouts. And they do so to honour their ancestors.
The Herero people stand as survivors of one of the worst genocides in history, when 65,000 were killed or died by the direct actions of the German soldiers of Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha in a war expanding from 1904 to 1907. But these portraits are not a documentary as they convey a deeper meaning. Of pride, and of death.
Naughten studied the early 1900s photographs taken during the Herero Rebellion and his portraits could be understood as the stylised, contemporary version. For the Herero honour their ancestors not only with their elaborate fashions, the desert is also an essential part of their culture, as it was the landscape of their suffering. The majority of the deaths happened when they were forced to leave Namibia and wander into the desert with the German army controlling the access to water wells, resulting in thousands of deaths from thirst and starvation. This is a landscape of mourning.
And in this realisation one is confronted with the reality of colonialism and its true impact on particular people, combined in this case with an alien feeling of timelessness, of history standing still.
When one society tries to differentiate itself from another, it increases its own complexity through the proliferation of new subsystems of culture. Fashion is one of them. It helps us achieve a sense of belonging, to a certain group or class, to a certain nation.
And in this silent cry there is a strong sense of nation. Because if they dress like this, it is for wearing the enemy’s uniform diminishes its power, and if there is another war, this time, they will win. But there is no more Prussia and no more Kaiser Wilhelm.
They are dressed for a war that will never be. For they mourn the dead that should never have happened.
“Conflict and Costume: The Herero tribe of Namibia” by Jim Naughten, with accompanying text by Dr Lutz Marten (£30, Merrell), was published on 18th February. An exhibition of Naughten’s portraits of the Herero people is now being held at the Margaret Street Gallery, London W1, from 5th March to 13th April (margaretstreetgallery.com)
Published in Arthaus Magazine, issue No. 1, May 2013. Revised in July 2020.