Comparison of North African and East African traditions

When I reading course material I found and recognized about 5 significant factors that show similarities and differences of clothing styles worn in North African and East African traditions and they are,

·         Civil Status

·         Gender and Age

·         Religion, Cultural and Modesty Factors

·         Weather/ Climate

·         Economical Factors

Those I above list significant factors are affected to both African societies individually or combining each other. Therefore In this letter I hope to describe these factors by giving suitable examples.

Civil Status

When we are considering North African women’s styles married women dress mouchtya and it is based cape-like shawl. And also Nomadic people specially wear tuareg styles. As well as we can get for instance bright cotton robs, hair styles and other particular decorations. In the east African cultural and traditional cloths are widely affected by age and civil status. For an example I can give younger and married women’s decorations.     

Gender and Age

In the North African culture we can see mouchitiya as a women’s wear and it doesn’t wear men and unmarried women. In the North African culture we can commonly see 3 basic types for men’s djellaba and two styles options for women. Not like others, East African younger are dress short cloths like tribesman. Not like old persons, younger are willing to be more decorative by using ornaments.

Religion, Cultural and Modesty Factors

We all know every culture has its own religion or religions and some people willing to dress religion, culture and modesty based dress. North African also has variety of religionic styles for example some catholic and roman based inhabited in desert, mountain people dresses haik and toga based or inherited cloth styles. Another example of North Africa is Arabic and Islamic based people dress full length tunic, long sleeve styles such as djellaba or kaftan. East Africa has different religionic belifs and tribal situations. Some tribal are dress short cloths such as traditional beaded waist corset warn by Dinka men. Some cast costumes are fully covered such as Masai costumes.    

Weather/ Climate

Some periods turn to hot and cold climate of Africa. So, people clothing styles are also dynamically changed according to the situation. For example North African cultures we can see some robes are used to prevent body from cold when rainy days. And North African women sometimes use robs, veils, long sleeve blouses in cold climate.

Not like North Africa, we can see static costumes in East Africa. I think the main reason is tribal and cast situation. These costumes are suitable for hot climate but we can only see simple robs only for cold and rainy climates.      

Economical Factors   

Different styles can be seen on North African dellaba. It is depend on their ability buy and it is related to social stratification. Low price dellaba are plain styles. But other is different coloured, designed and ornate styles. In the east Africa we can see heavy weighted costumes and ornaments by animal skins and cotton based. Mostly have poor people in the east Africa. Different ornaments can be seen on Masai costumes. But here we can see different ornaments such as beads/ pebbles expensive as well as cheapness. African costumes different from country to country hence we can see as well as difference and similarities when study North African and East African culture. Similarities we can see robs, skirts, some ornaments etc. Differences are also I above described as same through five significant factors. These factors are also bit change person to person, place to place and time to time. Because in the modern Africans fashions of both countries we have seen there are mixed European silhouettes and Islamic styles etc.