Notes

Wanga Nkape is Yei, born in 1941 in Gomare, Botswana. Nkape’s mother taught her how to make baskets when she was a teenager. In the 1980s she attended two skill upgrading courses and three teacher training courses run by Beth Terry. She became a master weaver and teacher of baskets and knows how to make open and closed-style baskets. Nkape has taught many basket upgrading classes, accompanying Beth Terry to Maseru, Lesotho to share her skills with the Basotho weavers. She said, ‘Basketmaking is very important to me because I can buy food and I have managed to place my children in school because of my baskets. Basketmaking has made me civilised because I was able to educate my children.’

The coiling technique here is simple over-sewing over one coil. The red-brown colour is obtained from the bark of the Berchemia discolor tree. The purple/ mauve colour is created when the leaves of the Hypheane palm and the Indigofera tinctorial plant are placed in the same dye bath. The cream colour is the natural colour of the palm fronds.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.