Situated at a valuable geographic and religious crossroads, Palestine has a long history of conflict and conquest.
During Ottoman rule (1516-1918), Palestinian villages and towns developed unique cultural traditions, especially in clothing. Both women and men, Muslim and Christian alike, wore head coverings daily for modesty. Distinctive styles also identified the wearer’s village, class, profession and a woman’s marital status.
This 19th-century headdress, called a “smadeh,” was worn by a woman in Ramallah, a city north of Jerusalem. She would have created it as a girl — with the help of her family and local weavers and embroiderers — as part of her trousseau.
A woman would don her smadeh, embellished with a single coin, when she reached marriageable age and then wear it the rest of her life — adding rows of coins from her bridegroom’s dowry. The coins were hers alone to spend as she saw fit. A folk tale tells of a husband who bemoans that his wife wears her heavy smadeh even to bed.
This smadeh has a padded rim displaying a row of tightly packed coins, with another smaller row dangling over the brow like fringe. The central cap is cross-stitched in traditional geometric motifs. The hat’s weight was secured behind the head with tasseled cloth cords and in front with a decorous chain.
On a woman’s wedding day, a beautifully embroidered veil, or “khirqa,” was pinned on top to frame the halo-like smadeh.
