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Description

A small shallow coiled circular basket with the sides flaring upward. Design consists of two shades of darker brown creating four equally spaced v-shapes decorating the sides on a natural colour background. Rim has medium coloured brown square decorations.

History Of Use

Grass weaving is done by both men and women, but baskets are traditionally woven by most women. Geometric patterns, and V-shapes, are common in Ovimbundu basketry and certain designs have names with meanings. In some cases, geometric designs are used to indicate a standard of capacity within the basket.

Specific Techniques

The dyes used in this basket are brown and black. To create brown dye, yellow and red dye are mixed together; shade of brown determined by ratio of red and yellow dyes. Yellow dye is made from roots of wild rhubarb (ocilunguluila). The roots are pounded and placed in cold water with the grasses used to create the coils. Afterwards, the mixture is placed in a fire to boil for half an hour, turning the grasses amber-yellow. Red dye is made by cooking leaves from an evava plant and boiling them in water with bark of the ukondo tree. After they are sufficiently simmered, they are mixed with ash and buried. Black dye is made when evava leaves are mixed in an iron solution; iron is obtained from stagnant muddy pools. Grass are placed into the evava-iron solution and boiled to darken. It can be darkened further by boiling the solution again and adding pounded ungalo leaves.

Item History

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