By Isha Gaye, Editor- In-Chief
In Humacao, Puerto Rico, an object often associated with the intimate ritual of grooming is being considered on a far greater scale: as an archive of African memory, identity, status, and resistance.
On August 22, the Museo Afro Casa Silvana (MACAS) inaugurated Puerto Rico’s first and largest exhibition devoted to the Afro comb. Presented ahead of the International Day for People of African Descent on August 31, the exhibition situates the comb within a history that stretches across the African continent and its diaspora, revealing an object whose significance has long exceeded its practical use.
More than forty Afro picks are gathered in the exhibition, representing traditions connected to communities including the Baule, Gogo, Ashanti, Luba, Swahili, Bamum, Chokwe, and Bemba. Together with historic photographs, postcards, stamps, and books, the collection traces the comb through different geographies and generations, from an object of personal possession and cultural distinction to an enduring symbol of Black consciousness.
More Than an Object
Across many African societies, combs have historically existed at the intersection of beauty, craftsmanship, social identity, and ritual. Their forms could communicate far more than aesthetic preference. Material, carving, ornamentation, and design could reflect the cultural world of the person who possessed them.
The intimacy attached to these objects is central to the exhibition.
“They were very important pieces; each person could have at least one,” explains co-curator Joyce De Jesús Martínez. “They were not lent out and were considered items to be buried along with other valuable possessions, to transition to the afterlife with the deceased.”
Her words shift our understanding of the comb from accessory to possession of consequence. Something held close enough to accompany its owner beyond life.
Among the works presented is a twentieth-century wooden comb associated with the Ashanti of Ghana, alongside an ancestral figure comb from the Bemba of Zambia. Their presence offers a glimpse into the extraordinary variety of comb-making traditions across the continent, where an everyday implement could also become a carefully crafted expression of belonging.
Archival materials broaden that history further. A 1910 postcard titled Native Hair Dressers, Zanzibar documents hair culture in East Africa, while a 1920 image from Djibouti captures a hairdressing session. A 1974 Comoros stamp depicting combs demonstrates how recognizable these forms became as markers of material culture worthy of national representation.
Seen together, these objects and images create a visual record of something Black communities have always understood: hair is rarely only hair.
When the Comb Became a Fist
The exhibition also follows the Afro comb into the political landscape of twentieth-century Black America.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Afro became inseparable from a broader rejection of Eurocentric beauty standards. Wearing natural Black hair could operate simultaneously as personal expression and political declaration. Within the Black Power and Black Is Beautiful movements, hair became one of the most visible sites through which Black people asserted autonomy over how they would present, define, and understand themselves.
The Black Fist Comb crystallized that relationship.
Its familiar silhouette, a comb crowned by a raised fist, transformed a grooming object into a portable political symbol. Patented in the United States in 1976, the design drew upon the raised fist already associated with Black solidarity, liberation, and collective power.
MACAS includes a 1970 Black Power Comb manufactured by Antonio’s Manufacturing, Inc., an injection-molded plastic and metal Afro rake. Placed beside combs rooted in African traditions, its presence creates an important dialogue between continent and diaspora.
The materials changed. The political circumstances changed. The geography changed.
Yet the comb remained attached to questions of Black identity, dignity, beauty, and self-definition.
An African Archive in Puerto Rico
That this exhibition is taking place in Puerto Rico carries particular weight.
The histories of Africa and the Caribbean cannot be separated. Centuries of forced migration carried African people, traditions, spiritual practices, aesthetics, languages, and forms of knowledge throughout the region. Much survived through adaptation, sometimes openly and sometimes beneath the surface of colonial society.
Objects can reveal those continuities in ways conventional historical narratives often fail to do.
A comb may appear modest beside monumental paintings or sculpture, but its intimacy is precisely what makes it significant. It belonged to daily life. It passed through hands. It sat beside mirrors. It participated in rituals of preparation and presentation. It helped shape how people saw themselves before they entered the world.
By centering the Afro comb, Museo Afro Casa Silvana asks us to reconsider what deserves preservation and what constitutes an archive.
History does not reside exclusively in official documents, institutions, or grand monuments. It can also live in the objects people carried, protected, inherited, and, in some cases, chose to take with them into the afterlife.
Curated by Edwin Velázquez Collazo and co-curated by Joyce De Jesús Martínez, the exhibition remains on view through November 14, 2026, at Museo Afro Casa Silvana in the Mambiche Prieto neighborhood of Humacao.
For the African diaspora, the comb has traveled an extraordinary distance. From carved wood to molded plastic, from personal possession to political emblem, it has remained close to the body while carrying histories much larger than itself.
Perhaps that is what makes this exhibition so compelling. It does not elevate an ordinary object into something important.
It reminds us that it was important all along.
Photo Credits
Postcard, “Native Hair Dressers, Zanzibar,” 5½” × 3½”, 1910. Published by A.C. Gomes & Son, Zanzibar.
Traditional Comb. Group: Akan; Ethnicity: Ashanti; Country: Ghana. Wood, 20th century, 11½” × 3¾”.
Ancestral Figure Comb. Group: Bantu; Ethnicity: Bemba; Country: Zambia. Wood, 20th century, 10¼” × 3”.
Postcard, “Djibouti, Hairdressing Session,” 3½” × 5½”, 1920. J.-G. Mody, photographer.
Commemorative stamp, “Peignes-combs,” Comoros, 1974.
Black Power Comb. Manufacturer: Antonio’s Manufacturing, Inc. Injection-molded plastic and metal, 6½” × 3” × ¼”, 1970. Product: Afro Rake No. 532 / Metal.