Notes

Nduva Kakura, who lives in Etsha 5, was born in Karumonti in Angola and moved to Botswana as a refugee. She learned to make baskets in 1971 when she moved to the Etsha area by simply watching other basketmakers, and later taking two skill-upgrading courses and a tray course. She knows how to make open and closed baskets and trays from palm fibre. She is also one of the few who knows how to make the Mbukushu wigs called, dishukeka. Basketmaking for Kakura is very important, “because I take that money and buy food and my family can eat. As long as people keep buying our baskets, we will keep making them as this continues our traditions”

The basket design here is the ‘Running Ostrich’. The coiling technique uses furcate or split stitching. This forked effect is created by deliberately splitting stitches in the previous row to create this distinctive pattern. The red-brown colour is produced by boiling the tree bark of Berchemia discolor together with palm leaves.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.