For the Shona people, the zebra is a totem animal and is praised in a poem as an "iridescent and glittering creature". Its stripes have symbolised the joining of male and female and at the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe, zebra stripes decorate what is believed to be a "domba", a premarital school meant to initiate girls into adulthood. In the Shona language, the name "madhuve" means "woman/women of the zebra totem" and is a given name for girls in Zimbabwe. The plains zebra is the national animal of Botswana and zebras have been depicted on stamps during colonial and post-colonial Africa. For people of the African diaspora, the zebra represented the politics of race and identity, being both black and white.