Chokwe Baskets Basket Weaving Culture

Chokwe Baskets

Cultural Continuity in Exile - basket weaving culture of the Chokwe - excerpt from Chokwe! Art and Initiation Among Chokwe and Related Peoples

A Cultural Continuity in Exile

Chokwe women of Angola who have fled the country's civil wars with their families and settled illegally in Zambian villages along the border still take great pride in the creation of baskets. It's an art form passed down from mother to daughter, and the baskets they weave may be used to hold food or to serve as divination instruments. Only postmenopausal women can weave divination baskets, because menstrual blood, considered a pollutant, would hamper the effect of a divination basket. Such details are important to the diviner, for it is his job to follow strict guidelines in maintaining order among people in the village and between people and spirits. Deceased relatives do not like to see conflict arise in their villages, nor do they like to feel that they or their professions have been forgotten. In establishing balance and consistency, diviners must use ritual objects to manipulate symbolic elements, and they must choreograph elaborate performances. The well-being of the village is believed to be the direct result of rituals that unite the seen and the unseen, living people and their ancestors.

In the following excerpt from Chokwe! Art and Initiation Among Chokwe and Related Peoples (Prestel-Verlag, 1998), anthropologist Sonia Silva relates her experiences living among the Luvale people in Chavuma, an area of about 200 square miles in Zambia's North-Western province, along the Angolan border.

While I was watching Lidia making a flour basket beneath a mango tree, her father introduced himself to me as village headman Kakhoma. He said that, although he was a fisherman rather than a basketmaker (although some men do make twined baskets), he had seen and learned many things in life, and, if I was interested, he would teach me many important aspects of the Luvale tradition.

Kakhoma thus began describing various details about basketry, coiling, and decoration. His mind was clear and his words engaging. Having heard mention of my interest in divination, he smoothly shifted the conversation in this direction by connecting the weaving of baskets for the storage of flour and grains to the weaving of baskets for containing divination articles. He explained that a coiled basket used to store flour and a coiled basket used in divination are very different. The first is narrow and deep, whereas the second is wide and rather shallow. While many female basketmakers can produce flour baskets, only menopausal women are allowed to weave the divination baskets. The making and delivery of any ordinary storage basket is easy and straightforward, but this is not the case with a divination basket.

Then, in a narrative style common among diviners, Kakhoma began to explain how a man who lives an ordinary life one day becomes a diviner. A divination basket is not created the day someone announces, "I shall receive an ngombo [any technique or tool related to divination], and become a diviner." Oh no. First, a man falls sick and his relatives go to a diviner to consult his divination basket. The diviner tells them that a dead relative of theirs once owned a divination basket while he was alive, and that he now wishes to see the basket back in the village. He is afflicting one of his relatives with illness because he wants his relative to fill the basket again. So his maternal relatives decide to give the first payment to the diviner, who will fill and animate their relative's divination basket. The diviner asks them, "Have you kept that basket that belonged to your relative, the late diviner?" They reply, "No, our relatives buried it together with him."

So he tells them to leave a piece of white clay and a piece of red clay at the doorway of a menopausal woman who knows how to make divination baskets. They give her the first payment and urge her to begin making the basket immediately. She replies that she feels too weary; they should dig up roots from the mukenge tree themselves.

So they go digging up the roots. They take the roots to her village, and she starts weaving their coiled basket. She ties a knot with one root strand and begins to coil. The sides of this basket will be much shorter than those seen in other baskets. This basket must be wide and flat to hold the divination articles inside the basket and make them easy for the clients to see and for the diviner to shake up during divination.

Once the basketmaker has finished her work, she puts a piece of white clay and another of red clay inside the basket and sends out the message: "Take the dead person you have given me." She calls the coiled basket a dead person because it is like the corpse of the late diviner.

The clients come to her village at dawn, before sunrise. The divination basket is lying on her doorway or in the kitchen. They just grab it and go, like thieves. She won't hand it over to them, no. Right where they find the basket, they leave a cloth, a blanket or some money. Nowadays, they probably leave about 10,000 kwachas [the equivalent of $10 in 1996]. They please her with their generosity to ensure she won't harm their divination basket. And off they go.

When the basketmaker wakes up, she starts looking for her basket. She strikes the ground with a pole of mukenge and curses the one who stole her basket. This is how the divination basket is received from the basketmaker. She has to curse the diviner for the basket to work.

September 12, 1996

Today, I met an Mbunda woman named Pezo, who is the only basketmaker in Chavuma who still makes divination baskets. We found her lying on a mat next to her mud-brick house, chewing a twig, and showing no intention of welcoming us. Sachiteta Ndonji, her Luvale husband, offered us stools, and guided us to the shade of a tree in the village yard. Kevin, my research assistant, introduced me briefly and explained my interest in divination baskets. Ndonji confirmed that his wife is the only maker of divination baskets in the area, and explained that these baskets are generally woven by Mbunda and Luchazi women, who are related culturally to the Luvale, Chokwe and Lunda. He proceeded to list all of the names of diviners whose baskets were made by Pezo, as if to validate her authority. Her last basket was ordered in 1995 by a man who had returned to Angola without raising the money for the final payment. Ndonji called to Pezo to bring this basket from the house. She forced her aged and thin body out of the shade and returned holding a dirty basket in one hand. She greeted us with a broad smile that showed the twig between her teeth. Now she seemed less impolite than nonchalant, and a little shy.

Soon after this visit to Pezo, a diviner named Sakutemba called my attention to his divining basket. He complained that it was so worn and shapeless that the pieces kept falling out during the shaking up. Guessing his thoughts, I proposed that we order a new one from Pezo, and assured him that I would myself cover the payments and expenses associated with its transformation into a divination basket.

September 27, 1996

Sakutemba arrived at Ndonji's in the late morning. He introduced himself to Pezo and Ndonji as a diviner whose divination basket needed replacement. Pezo nodded and walked away. Ndonji, who was busy making an ax handle, responded that he had never heard of Sakutemba, but he was glad to know that the Kalwiji area in Chavuma had its own diviner. He was also pleased to hear that Sakutemba needed a new divination basket. He himself would go digging out mukenge root the next day, and he would ensure that his wife worked hard on the basket.

Sakutemba expressed his gratitude and reminded Ndonji that the ceremony transferring the divination pieces from the old basket to the new basket, a ceremony known as chilika chakuzukula ngombo, should take place before the rainy season began. He would therefore return the following week to check on Pezo's progress and discuss such details as final payment and how to collect the basket from her verandah. He gave 500 kwachas to Ndonji, who put it in his shirt pocket. Finally, as Sakutemba shook Ndonji's hand in farewell, Sakutemba commented that a good basketmaker such as Pezo knows exactly when to finish the base and start weaving the sides; he was certain that his own divination basket would be the right size, not large like a winnowing basket.

Sakutemba walked down a path between two arid fields. Ndonji shook his head in disapproval, clearly thinking that Sakutemba's thin, drained and shabby figure did not fit the portrait of a man distinguished by the opportunities associated with basket divination. Ndonji said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who benefit from the situation in which they find themselves, and those who just waste them; those who always prosper, and those who always decline. The same holds for diviners. A divination basket brings happiness and wealth to its owner, but diviners are not necessarily wealthy. Some are men of wealth and importance; others will always be poor. Why? Because the wealthy know how to use their wealth wisely, buying cattle, marrying several women, and expanding their villages, whereas the poor waste their gains on alcohol and lovers.

October 4, 1996

Sakutemba arrived at Pezo's in the late morning. He found us absorbed in her work. To begin the basket, Pezo had selected a bundle of thick roots, which she had prepared with a knife by peeling off the brown skin and smoothing the exposed surface. Pezo used an ax blade to taper one end of the thick root on a log. When the end became flexible, she tied it into a knot, or lihunda. People say that complications in life are like a coiled basket, for both grow out of a small detail. As the proverb goes, "kaputuka mbango kuvangila lihunda,"--"a coiled basket always begins with a knot."

Pezo began coiling the basket's bottom. When it had reached a width of about three inches, she began weaving the sides. One inch from the bottom, she started weaving over her last row at a sharp diagonal. The result was a thick ridge resembling the top of some thatch roofs. This ridge strengthens the basket and prevents the divining pieces from flying out with the upward shaking of the basket during divination sessions.

Several minutes later, Ndonji's classificatory mother wistfully reminisced about tasty caterpillars and osamwina, a dried game meat that is eaten in Angola as a relish or sauce to accompany the thick grain porridge that constitutes the staple food. This initiated a lively conversation, as the Angolan refugees complained about matamba, the cassava-leaf relish commonly eaten in Chavuma, which is served daily to remind them of their dislocation and poverty.

At the mention of matamba, Pezo rolled her eyes and pointedly ordered Sakutemba to steal his divination basket by the end of the month, probably hoping to be able to use his payment to buy tastier relishes. Sakutemba was also expected to pay her occasional visits and give her small additional gifts in recognition for her work. He should never forget the woman who created his working tool, for the spirit of a dead diviner alone would not make him a diviner. As for the particulars of their current transaction, on a day to be arranged, before sunrise, he should come to steal the basket. Most importantly, he should leave a payment of 10,000 kwachas on her doorway, where he would find the basket.

Pezo's remarks gave me the opportunity to express my interest in attending the ceremony of stealing the basket, and to mention the way that fisherman Kakhoma had described it to me. Ndonji commented that he had heard of the fishing skill of Kakhoma, a fellow Luvale, but he was surprised to learn that he knew so much about basket divination. Ndonji said that the basket-making procedure and delivery involved the following main steps:

If a divination basket is worn out, the diviner searches for an old woman past menopause who knows how to make divination baskets. He pays her a visit and orders a basket. Before leaving, he pays her the advance of 500 kwachas. Soon thereafter, she goes into `the bush to collect roots. When she finishes the basket, she sends a messenger to inform the diviner about the final price.

On the arranged day, the diviner or one of his relatives goes to the basketmaker's doorway to collect the basket. He grabs the basket and lays the final payment in the same spot. Then he leaves.

Now the basketmaker starts cursing the diviner: "You who took my basket! Die with it! Go and die! Go to the red ground!" At the same time, she is hitting the ground with a mukenge pole. That's all.

October 17, 1996

Pezo continued weaving above the first ridge of the basket, following the same method she had used below it. She steadily widened the sides of the basket, added a second ridge, and coiled a few more rows. When the basket resembled a tureen about three inches deep and a foot wide, she wove the last row in the usual way.

Ndonji passed a pipe of tobacco to Pezo. She had a big puff, exhaled, and announced the completion of her work. Ndonji remarked that, under more relaxed circumstances or if it were the rainy season, when farming takes priority, this basket would have taken much longer to make.

Ndonji held the basket with both hands and shook it up and down in the movement that diviners use. It felt good and sturdy.

October 25, 1996

I met Sakutemba at about 5:30 a.m. to go and steal his basket from Pezo. Sakutemba wore a nice brown jacket for the occasion and woolen pants torn at the knees. We walked to Pezo's in silence, hunched in the chill of the dawn. Kevin was waiting for us on a small sofa that Ndonji had left outside, in case we arrived too early.

Sakutemba walked toward Pezo's doorway. He snatched the basket from the doorstep and hid it in a plastic bag. He laid on the spot two bills of 5,000 kwachas (which I had slipped into his jacket pocket on our way there), weighted them down with a stone, and walked away toward his home, leaving Kevin and me to observe the rest of the delivery ceremony.

Soon after Sakutemba disappeared, Ndonji opened the door and collected the payment. He was followed immediately by Pezo, wearing a colorful cloth, a bright yellow jacket, and a red scarf around her face. She folded her arms and crossed the village in a westerly direction, cursing Sakutemba mercilessly. She halted 20 feet down the path leading to the main road and continued cursing. She did not hit the ground with a pole. Then she turned around and burst into laughter. "Have you brought those scones and tea you promised us?" she asked me. "It's so cold this morning."

"Chokwe!," the first exhibition in the United States to focus on the artistically rich culture of the Chokwe and related peoples of central Africa, studies the ritual and meaning of African art as it is handed down through generations. The Chokwe are the most famous and artistically prolific ethnic group in Angola. More than 175 objects are on view, including figures of chiefs, thrones, scepters, masks and pottery.

"Chokwe! Art and Initiation Among Chokwe and Related Peoples"

Through January 1999 Birmingham Museum of Art Birmingham, Ala.

Summer 1999 Baltimore Museum of Art Baltimore, Md.

This excerpt is adapted from "Birth of a Divination Basket," by Sonia Silva, first published in Chokwe! Art and Initiation Among Chokwe and Related Peoples (Prestel-Verlag, 1998), edited by Manuel Jordan and Gary van Wyk.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1546/is_6_13/ai_53461354