Zulu beaded necklace : Trooper S A Yarrow, 3 New South Wales Mounted Rifles

Necklace made up of eight beadwork rectangles, attached to a pink beaded 'chain'. The rectangles are made up of pink, white, black, green, red and blue beads.The central area of each rectangle is made of horizontal rows.The first row, closest to the pink 'chain' is made of four beads in the following pattern - white, pink, pink white. The next row is made of four black beads. The third row follows the first, then a row of black and so on until 14 rows are completed, finishing with a black row. The rectangles are edged by a vertical row of dark green beads, which are in turn bordered by white beads. The free short edge of each rectangle is red, with blue beads in each corner, where the red row joins with the white row. The pink beaded 'chain' appears to have been shortened and does not have any method with which to fasten the end of the necklace together. Two of the rectangles are missing beads.

Associated with the service of 1142 Trooper Stanley Australia Yarrow with B Squadron, 3 New South Wales Mounted Rifles during the South African (Boer) War.He embarked from Sydney on board the transport, Maplemore on 15 March 1901, arriving at Port Elizabeth on 12 April. The unit served in Eastern Transvaal and Eastern Orange River Colony in 1901 to 1902. They embarked from Cape Town for Australia on 4 May 1902, arriving at Sydney on 3 June 1902. Trooper Yarrow bartered with a Zulu warrior for this necklace while serving in South Africa and brought it home with him as a souvenir of his service.