A Songhai woman from the Bandiagara Plateau, Mali, wearing an elaborate traditional hairstyle incorporating brass, copper, silver, amber and colored glass ornaments, invoking a style of times past, when the Songhai Empire ruled much of the region between the 15th and 16th century.

A Songhai woman from the Bandiagara Plateau, Mali, wearing an elaborate traditional hairstyle incorporating brass, copper, silver, amber and colored glass ornaments, invoking a style of times past, when the Songhai Empire ruled much of the region between the 15th and 16th century.

Photograph by Angela Fisher and Carol Beckwith.