2001.77.3

Collection type

Object

Description

'Wedding basket'. A gourd base decoratively covered with red tanned leather strapping with woven palm fibre neck, attached lid, and with long plaited leather strap for carrying.

Long description

The top of the gourd base is trimmed with red tanned goat skin, the edges of which have been very roughly cut causing the width to be very uneven. Overlapping this trimming in places, and attached to the gourd with leather loops, is a plait of red goat skin that wraps around the circumference of the gourd forming a swag. From this plait extends numerous thin red goat skin strips/ laces that criss-cross each other in large sections. They extend to the base of the gourd and are all strapped around a ring of fabric wadding, this ring forming a solid flat base on which the container rests. Also attached to the goat skin plait around the gourd is a long plaited carrying strap which appears to be a mixture of red tanned goat skin and cow hide. Attached to the gourd with large palm fibre stitching is a basketry neck trimmed with red goat skin. Attached to the neck of the container with four red goat skin plaits is the lid. The lid is convex with an inverted rim, the rim is edged with skin stitching and the centre of the lid is formed by a piece of gourd. Traditionally made by the women of a groom's family and given as a gift to the bride (see notes). [JP 12/2/2004]

Geographical reference

Sudan, Republic of

Africa > Northern Africa > Sudan, Republic of

Northern Darfur

Cultural groups

Rizekat

Person

Field collector Natalie Tobert

PRM source Natalie Tobert

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1985

Date collected

1979 - 1985

Acquisition information

Purchased: 2001

Materials and processes

Material Goat Skin Animal, Material Palm Fibre Plant, Material Gourd Plant, Process Basketry, Process Plaited, Process Stitched

Dimensions

Diameter: max 290 mm, Height: max 437 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 2001.77.3

Research and responses

A basket of this type is illustrated (nb. the illustration is an almost exact representation of this basket) in Rizekat Wedding Baskets, Sudan by Natalie Tobert, Journal of Museum Ethnography No. 4, December 1993, p. 79, Fig, 2.1, and is described as follows: 'Container for storage of marriage goods, gourd base with a woven palm fibre neck, deocrated with red leather goat thonging (up to 51 cm).' See this article for information on the materials, manufacture, and use of wedding baskets. [JP 12/2/2004]

Search terms: Basketry, Marriage, Basket