#Tropenmuseum is into football

This months object of the month is a funny one. It is a picture of a lekarapa; the picture used by the Tropenmuseum is the same picture as used on the Wikipedia article and shows Alfred "Lux" Baloyi who created the first lekarapa. The picture was originally published on the Voice of America website.

According to the VoA the lekarapa shows the image of South African football legend, Lucas Radebe, while the TM says the two football players on the helmet are keeper Rowen Fernández and striker Kabamba Musasa.

The lekarapa can be seen at the Tropenmuseum as part of its "Africa scores" exhibition. This exhibtion that was running during the World Cup championships in South Africa and will run until August 22.

During the World Cup championships Football the South African lekarapa (plural makarapa) became a gadget used by worldwide fans.

The lekarapa, an adorned hard hat, was at first only used by the fans of the Kaizer Chiefs, one of the great football clubs of Soweto. Many fans of the Kaizer Chiefs were contract labourors working in the mines or in the building industry and had to wear hard hats. Lekarapa means contract labouror. The name was later adopted for the hard hat itself.

On this exuberantly adorned hard hat from 2001 there are the logos of the Kaizer Chiefs: stylised indian headdresses Amakhosi meaning chief in the Zulu language. The two football players on the helmet are keeper Rowen Fernández and striker Kabamba Musasa.

The English band the Kaiser Chiefs (with a "s") named themselves this way because a former player of the Kaizer Chiefs became the captain of the favourite club of the band: Leeds United.

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Thanks,
      GerardM