Two portraits of proud cultural identity face each other across the center divide: on the left, a Xhosa man adorned in elaborate beaded finery — headband, fringe vest, wristbands — holds a traditional long-stemmed pipe; on the right, a turbaned Tembu mother, her infant riding on her back, draws on an identical pipe, her layered bead necklaces catching the warm South African light. This striking dual-image chrome postcard from the Transkei — the nominally independent Xhosa "homeland" created under South Africa's apartheid-era Bantustan policy — was mailed on October 14, 1980, franked with two RSA definitive stamps and sent by airmail from Durban to a business address, Suite 800, 134 N. La Salle, Chicago, Illinois. The sender, signing only with a first initial, wrote breezily: "Greetings from So. Africa, we came to find gold & diamond mines but all there is is what you see — having a great time." The Transkei existed as a nominally sovereign state from 1976 to 1994; postcards promoting its "traditional" culture were tools of both tourism and apartheid propaganda, making them charged historical documents today.