Notes

Anastacia Nankali comes from Matjenya in the Tjeve area of Mashare Constituency in Kavango East Region of Namibia. She is a member of the weavers’ group started by Charlie Paxton under the auspices of ‘Every River has its People’ project.

The start of this basket is a true weaving technique because the warp and weft elements are interwoven at right angles using an over-one-under-one weaving style. This technique is called chequer weave or checkerwork. The Shambyu women call it a ‘crab start’ which represents the small crabs found in the Okavango River. The coiling technique here uses simple over-sewing over two rows of the grass core. The Kavango weavers are well-known for their tight coiling over very thin core bundles. This skill has evolved over the years since the early 1990s with the support and encouragement from Karin le Roux of the Rössing Foundation and later by the dedication of Charlie Paxton and Christina Shitoka.

The light tan colour in the background colour is created by boiling palm leaves in a dye bath where Berchemia discolor bark has already been used two or three times. The light grey is created by soaking the palm leaves in water with rusty tin cans. The darker blue-grey colour also comes from the palm soaked in water with rusty tins, but afterwards cooked in a Berchemia dye bath. The light cream colour on the edges of the ‘fish’ is the natural colour of the palm leaves.

- Dr Elizabeth Terry

Provenance

Dr Elizabeth Terry Collection.