The Important Characteristic of Isishweshwe

Pheto-Moeti(2017: 25) stated that since the 1950s African women saw a need to have a national identity and embrace the blue "German Print" or Terantala as it was called, it has evolved extensively. The blue cloth has been passed down to different cultures and I as a black Zulu young woman I use the blue cloth because it relates to my own cultural identity.
According to Leeb-du Toit (2017: 7) it has become clear that isishweshwe was not merely a marker of identity among South African women and men, black and white, but was also esteemed in other areas of southern Africa- in Namibia and Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland and (earlier) in Zimbabwe and Angola. Informants in some of these regions generously supplied her with information on the importance of isishweshwe as a marker of cultural identity and respect with regards to age grade, marriage and even funerary customs and ceremonies. They clarified the cloths significance for gender and female beauty, in particular , as well as childbearing, propriety and morality and its appropriateness in ukuhlonipha or conventions of respect (ibid).