Colony and protectorate · 1896–1960
Dress,hairandadornment
What people wore and how they wore it: gowns and wrappers, head-ties and hats, hair dressed for the occasion, beads and bangles.
Many were made by colonial officials, missionaries and foreign visitors. Titles and descriptions come from the collections that hold them and can carry the attitudes and language of their time. We show them as historical records, not as endorsements. Dates, eras and categories were assigned automatically from those records and some will be wrong. If you or your family appear in a picture, you hold rights to one, a detail is wrong, or you think a picture should not be here, press “Report this picture” under it: your note reaches our editors with the picture attached, and they can take it down straight away. You can also write to hello@dt-ets.com.
A man in uniform in front of a house, Kissi country, 1930–31 1930
Original title: Man, hut, uniform
Bolinder, Gustaf Wilhelm · Public domain (CC0) · Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Bondu girls in full dress, hair dressed high (Lisk-Carew postcard) 1930
Original title: Portrait, women, costume
Lisk-Carew, Alphonso · Public domain (CC0) · Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Six-toothed hair comb with burnt-in stripes, collected 1931 Collected by 1931
Original title: Comb
Public domain (CC0) · Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg · Source ↗ · Report this picture
This picture shows nudity. Many old pictures like this were taken by European visitors, colonial officials and missionaries, and we often cannot know whether the people in them agreed.
Woman 1931
Bolinder, Gustaf Wilhelm · Public domain (CC0) · Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Bracelet late 19th or early 20th century
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Necklace of small brown seeds, 3.6 metres long, Vai, collected 1931 Collected 1930–31
Original title: Necklace
Public domain (CC0) · Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Brass ornamental knife in a fringed red leather sheath, Vai Collected 1930–31
Original title: Prydnadskniv, knife
Public domain (CC0) · Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm · Source ↗ · Report this picture