The Cultural Influences of Marvel’s Black Panther
2.) What Are Neck Rings and Lip Plates For?
Examples of Lip Discs and Neck Rings in the film and in real life. Photos by Imgkid.com
Neck rings
The Ndebele women of South Africa traditionally wear neck rings as a symbol of their bond and faithfulness to their husband. It also bears the status of its wearer as husbands used to provide the rings, and the richer the husband, the more rings a married woman would wear. Today, it’s no longer necessary to wear the rings permanently. It seems that all of the Dora Milaje wear neck rings too, but it doesn’t follow that all of them are married. Could it be that they wear the neck rings to signify their bond and faithfulness to the monarch that they serve? Or in Okoye’s case, their loyalty to Wakanda? The neck rings in the movie also showed status, with Okoye wearing gold being the general, and the rest wore silver rings.
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Lip discs
In the movie, we see one of the elders from the river tribe wearing a lip plate. It could have been used in that regard as a way of showing the status of the elder, as many cultures also practice wearing lip plates for different reasons. One example would be the Mursi women of Ethiopia, where young girls can choose to start wearing the plates at the age of 15 or 16. The lower lip is stretched over the course of many months or years as women continue to wear a plate of increasing size, some can go as large as 12 centimeters in diameter. Mursi women wear lip plates as a form of self-expression, but can also mean their readiness for marriage or marital status.
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GP Manalo
