- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Twined basket with very fine twisted plant fibre handle. The basket roughly globular shaped. The basket is mainly natural coloured but there are bands of stripes of a reddish brown coloured fibre. [CW [OPS Move] 7/12/2016]
- Geographical reference
- Date / Period
- Date made: Circa 1956?, uncertain
- Date collected
- Circa 1956?
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 15/03/1996
- Materials and processes
- Material Plant Fibre, Process Twisted, Process Twined Woven, Process Basketry
- Dimensions
- Height: max 175 mm, Diameter: max 190 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1996.21.50
- Research and responses
In 2020 the Pitt Rivers Museum was a partner in the project lead by the Horniman Museum 'Rethinking Relationships and Building Trust around African Collections' The project commissioned community researchers from Africa to develop new practice around Kenyan and Nigerian collections at the Horniman, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the World Museum in Liverpool. These comments are from community researcher Njeri Gachihi: "Given that the two objects 1996.21.50 and 1996.21.53 from Pit rivers were collected by Phoebe Somers, they could be from either the Bantu speaking communities of Tanzania or Kenya. I wish to assume that the object is a Kîondo from the Agikuyu community of Kenya.
Traditionally, every kikuyu girl made her own kîondo. The art of basketry was passed on from the age oof 8 years and it became so part of a woman’s life such that she could weave without looking as she walked. A kîondo is an important bag for a married woman in the Agikuyu community to date. It constitutes the gifts that a bride must receive from her mother. The gifting is ceremonial and significant and is equated to being a respectful and hardworking woman, qualities of a good wife. It is used for carrying foodstuffs from the market or from the garden after harvesting. It is a woman’s shopping bag. Today, there are modified designs and sizes in different materials that are used as a woman’s hand bag." [FB 5/1/2021]
1996.21.50
Twined basket with very fine twisted plant fibre handle. The basket roughly globular shaped. The basket is mainly natural coloured but there are bands of stripes of a reddish brown coloured fibre. [CW [OPS Move] 7/12/2016]
1996.21.50
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