Notes

Kashivi Kakona was born in Tamacha near Sepopa, on the western side of the main channel of the Okavango River, just where the Delta begins. ‘My mother taught me how to weave baskets in Tamacha, and much later, I became a teacher to basketmakers living in all the Etsha’s from #1 to #13. I am very proud to be a teacher. Many people are interested in the work of basketmakers like me.’ Kashivi describes how the women collect the raw materials used in basket making, ‘We collect the mbare palm very far in the swamps. We get up very early in the morning before sunrise and only come home just at sunset. The walk is very difficult. We fall in the holes; we trip on the mukoma (papyrus) under the water. Sometimes the water is up to our necks and I do not know how to swim. The worst is the leeches when they attach to your thighs, and we are always looking out for ngandu (crocodiles).’

The basket design depicts the shape of a ‘Tundimbe’, the Thimbukushu name for the traditional clay pot used for brewing beer. The coiling technique here uses close, simple over-sewing over one coil with bundles of grass for the core. The brown colour is obtained when the palm leaves are boiled with pounded Euclea divinorum root bark. The lighter shade is attained when the same Euclea divinorum roots are used again in a second dye bath.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.