Ndebele Pysanky

some of my pysanky collection

A pysanka (Ukrainian: писанка, plural: pysanky) is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs using a wax-resist (batik) method. The word pysanka comes from the verb pysaty, "to write", as the designs are not painted on, but written with beeswax.

Many other eastern European ethnic groups decorate eggs using wax resist for Easter. These include the Belarusians (пісанка, pisanka), Bulgarians (писано яйце, pisano yaytse), Croats (pisanica), Czechs (kraslice), Hungarians (hímestojás), Lithuanians (margutis), Poles (pisanka), Romanians (ouă vopsite, incondeiate or impistrite), Russians (расписанное яйцо "rаspisannoe yaitsо"), Serbs (pisanica), Slovaks (kraslica), Slovenes (pisanica, pirhi or remenke) and Sorbs (jejka pisać). My people.

Making pysanky was one of my annual Lenten rituals. Many years ago I took a pysanky-making workshop at the Ukrainian Museum in NYC and every year after, I would pick up my special dyes and more beeswax at their museum shop during Lent. There is no Ukrainian Museum in Johannesburg. I am not sure if there are even any other Ukrainians. Alas, all of my pysanky are tucked away in storage in the US and so are my pysanky tools.

I had reasoned - and rightly so - that I would look for more South African ways to celebrate and decorate for the holidays. But most of the decorations I have seen in the shops are more European than African. Mostly German, Dutch and English. And most of the animals represented are your traditional Easter chicks and bunnies.

But the Germans as it turns out decorate their eggs to achieve a look similar to pysanky. I found an artist last year at the Bryanston Organic Market who creates beautiful Easter eggs using a nib and black ink. Her name is Ami Bracht.

Last year I bought several of her white goose eggs which she had decorated with bold black and white African graphics. This year I added to my collection with more Easter eggs depicting very stylized African animals. A zebra, springbok, a crocodile and a sea turtle. Now we're talking!

Making the eggs involves blowing them out, drawing the basic design, colouring and drawing with a nib and black ink, pulling strings and beads through them, closing the holes and finishing them off with two coats of glaze.

It takes Ami about an hour and a half to make one egg. About as labor-intensive as pysanky I'd say!

She will do custom creations too. (072 157 7015) Ami recommended a German bookshop in Cresta Mall where she buys many of her German craft supplies. It is called Lohmüller. I will have to check it out.















This year we are visiting a very special Catholic Church for Easter which is located in a remote Ndebele village in Mpumalanga. You can not find it without a guide. The church is uniquely decorated in the Ndebele style with colorful wall paintings on the outside and decorations on the altar.

the altar piece

The South African Ndebele are one of the Nguni tribes. The Nguni tribes represent nearly two thirds of South Africa's Black population and can be divided into four distinct groups; the Central Nguni (the Zulu-speaking peoples), the Southern Nguni (the Xhosa-speaking peoples), the Swazi people from Swaziland and adjacent areas and the Ndebele people of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga.

In honor of our visit, I decided to incorporate some Ndebele designs into an Easter egg. I bought a blown-out ostrich egg, some acrylics and paintbrushes in order to produce a sort of Ndebele pysanky - without the wax.

Happy Easter in Zulu