Dunia is the Swahili word for the earth. The full Maasai geometry — arrows, diamonds and a hand-beaded medallion — worked in the tones of the land itself: dark soil, copper, amber and bone white. Dunia is the Swahili word for the earth — the whole of it, the ground underfoot and the world it carries. Its colours are the colours of the land itself: dark soil, copper, amber, the bleached bone of dry season grass. Among the Maasai, the earth is the beginning of everything, the thing held in common. This belt sets that palette in arrows and diamonds around a deep medallion, the savannah read in tones rather than colour. Black, copper, amber and gold run in bands and arrows, broken by diamonds of bone white and a deep medallion at the centre.Among the Maasai, the land is the thing held in common, the ground every season returns to. Dunia takes those tones — soil, dust, dry grass and dark wood — and lets the geometry do the rest.
