Notes

Mogetso Saxoba was born in Gomare, Ngamiland District Botswana in 1958. She was taught basketmaking by her mother when she was about 14 or 15 years old. Saxoba knows how to make many types of basket styles – open bowl-shaped, closed baskets with lids, trays, ‘pie dishes’, ‘cups and saucers’, table mats, manki style, and bracelets – all from palm fibre. In the 1980s she attended two skill upgrading courses and two teacher training courses run by Beth Terry. Saxoba has taught basketmaking, even as far afield as the Chobe Enclave and is a founding member of the Ngwao Boswa Weavers’ Co-opereative in Gomare. In relationship to the Yei culture, Saxoba said, “A long time ago there was no decoration on the baskets. But these days we have taken our culture further by making different designs. And now people from all over the world come to our village to buy our baskets”.

The coiling technique here uses close, simple over-sewing over two coils, alternating at each stitch while catching the previous row with a small ‘stitch’. The dark-brown colour is obtained by boiling the palm leaves and the Euclea divinorum root bark in a dye bath, while the lighter shade is created by using the same Euclea divinorum roots again in a second dye bath.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.