Tutsi Basket

“Coil-sewn baskets (agaseki) with conical lids were made by Tutsi women of the aristocracy. The fine coil sewing and the precisely worked-out spiral patterns, many of which have names, were time-consuming and called for exact calculations in the stitching. By the 1930s, imported dyes had expanded the range of available colors (the natural pale gold of the grass and black and white) to include green, orange, and mauve. Earlier baskets such as these lidded ones show a delicacy of design that later examples, made at craft centers for sale to tourists, lack. Baskets made in Rwanda have a plain, undecorated lid; lids of those made in Burundi may be patterned.” From Africa, the Art of a Continent, p. 155, ed. by Tom Phillips.

5″

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