Notes

Kuyewanapo Kaye was born in Karumonti, Angola and moved to Botswana with her family as a refugee. She knows how to make open and closed baskets and moseme mats. She indicated she weaves almost all day during the winter, especially if there has been a drought, saying, ‘When there is no mahangu to harvest, you just think of weaving. Then all the women come together to weave.’ When asked if weaving baskets contributes to their culture, she replied, ‘God gives these things (talents) to the Mbukushu people’.

This design is a classic ‘yin-yang’ that was seldom seen during the 1980s. When the Etsha weavers’ group was created by Botswanacraft in the mid-1990s, this design was encouraged, with increasing elaboration and decorative additions. The coiling technique here uses close, simple over-sewing covering one row while catching the previous row with a small ‘stitch’. The brown colour is obtained when the palm leaves are boiled with pounded Euclea divinorum root bark. The slight variations in shade, as seen in this basket, are due to the waxy nature of the palm fibre, with some leaves absorbing more colour than others.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.