If you’ve somehow managed to breeze through Scifest 2017 without coming to the realization that science is embodied in everything, then your ignorance is about stop right here, right now, with this example of how mathematics is woven into the iconic Xhosa beadworks.
If you’ve somehow managed to breeze through Scifest 2017 without coming to the realization that science is embodied in everything, then your ignorance is about stop right here, right now, with this example of how mathematics is woven into the iconic Xhosa beadworks.
While the jewellery may appear to the naked eye to be just exquisitely designed and intricately made fashion accessories to wear around your neck or wrist, there is so much more to it beneath the surface.
The beads are cultural and historical artifacts, the colours are coded with language and love letters, and the patterns and designs hold mathematical equations.
The workshop, The Mathematics of Beading, deals with exactly that: the science behind the skillful, nimble, hand-made jewellery.
Rhodes University Pharmacy Masters student Michael Zvidzayi unravels the mathematic masterpieces woven into the beadworks.
The plus side is that participants, armed with a packet of beads and list mathematics problems, get to practice the mathematic equations at the centre of the artwork, and reward themselves by producing their own beaded bracelet with the help of Nothemba Makinana Masithandane and Nowethu January, two of Grahamstown’s skilled and seasoned Xhosa beadwork artists.
The mathematical significance of the beadwork lies in the pattern and design and how many of a certain colour beads there are per line. The patterns themselves begin to start looking like mathematic formulas after a while.
For example: Row 3- left to right- 7W, 1B, 6W (seven white beads; one black; six white)
Row 4- left to right- 5W, 2B, 6W
And algebraic equations like N=4P-1 (N=number of beads; P=pattern number).
Now that’s enough mathematics for one day, go take part in the two-hour workshop, and experience the magic of mathematics merging with the beautiful beadwork for yourself, and then wear your bracelet everywhere you go as a reminder that science exists wherever you look for it, and even where you don’t.
Mathematics of Beading takes place daily between 15h00 and 16h00 at the Albany Museum of Natural History.
