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The following beadwork items are worn on the lower body. These items typically cover the buttocks or genitals.
Ibeshu & Isigege
The graphic below shows two articles worn at weddings or other festive occasions. At the top is an ibeshu, a beaded buttock-cover. At the botton is an apron called isigege when worn by a girl and isinene in the case of a lad.
This garment is a cylindrical body of tightly rolled cloth covered in a sheath of beads in regional colours with typical male and female geometrical symbols. The object is called by several names:
It can be worn by males or females. Such cylinders, long enough to encircle the waist, are sometimes sown together to incorporate up to seven in a broad waistband called (as are most beaded belts without specific names) an umutsha.
Top: A large beaded square on which appears the diamond pattern of the married woman, suspended from the neck by a lacework neckband of beads so that it reaches the upper part of the chest like a beaded pendant. It is called ineba, which also appears in other, more simplified forms.
At bottom is a beaded belt (umutsha) to which is attached a decorative beaded apron called isinene when worn by males and isigege when used by females.
Another example of a beaded belt with unmarried male and female symbols, called by the generic term umutsha.
