Entry · catalog no. 4347
Bantu knots
/ /ˈbæntuː nɒts/ /BAN-too nots
noun · Southern Africa in origin; Black America for the English name · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
A style in which the hair is parted into sections, each section twisted or coiled and then wound around its own base into a knot that stands off the head. Worn as a finished style, as protective or overnight wear, and as a curl set.
“She put her hair in Bantu knots Saturday night and took them down for church.”
2.
By extension the knot-out: taking the knots down the next day for a spiral wave pattern.
“The knot-out came out better than the knots did.”
Origin & Attribution
The style is African and old, traced most consistently to Zulu and other Nguni peoples of southern Africa, which is why it is also called Zulu knots or Nubian knots. The English name is neither old nor African: Bantu is a linguistic macro-label covering hundreds of groups, not a style name the originating communities used, and the phrase Bantu knots is a recent Americanism. Both facts belong in the record — the practice is ancestral, the label is ours.
1994
Earliest recorded English evidence for Bantu knot, in the Detroit Free Press, per the Oxford English Dictionary
2014
Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2015 shows the style; press calls them mini buns
2015
HuffPost publishes These Are Bantu Knots, Not Mini Buns. There's A Difference, 28 May
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Southern Africa in origin; Black America for the English name · 1990s
Spoken by
Black women and girls; natural-hair wearers
$BANTUKThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring21 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
68/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1994
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2015
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
HuffPost, These Are Bantu Knots, Not Mini Buns. There's A Difference, 28 May
2015
■
Refinery29 coverage of the Mane Addicts tutorial withdrawal, 29 May
2015
■
+ Cite a sourceDetroit Free Press, cited as earliest evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary entry Bantu knot
1994
See also