basket
- Museum number
- Af1950,42.8
- Description
-
Register 1950:
Grass plaited basket patterned in black and white.
- Production date
- 1920s
- Dimensions
-
Height: 21.20 centimetres
-
Width: 15 centimetres
-
Depth: 14.90 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Af1950,42.1 to 21 belong together and are marked in the register as from Tanganyika. A note in the register reads 'Baskets probably chiefly WAKIGA (south west Uganda), and WASINJA (south end of Lake Victoria)'. Although these ethnic names are not current today, the location of production fits perfectly with a second group of baskets given by Mrs Turnbull in 1957 (Af1957,22.1 to 16) which are all recorded as from the west and south sides of Lake Victoria (an area now divided between Uganda and Tanzania), an area that had a consistent style of basketry that seems to have been shared by many ethnic groups in the area. The Turnbulls were posted to Tanganyika between 1916 and 1930, and in 1904-14 were working in Malawi. The register is therefore mistaken in dating them between 1904-14, and all the Af1950,42 baskets must have been bought in the 1920s when they were in Tanganyika. For the sake of simplification they have been recorded as made in Tanganyika by the Zinza and bought in the 1920s, but this is only a form of short-hand.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1950
- Acquisition notes
- Af1950,42.1 to 34 were purchased from Mrs I C Turnbull. They are recorded in the register as having been 'Collected between 1904 & 1914 by the vendor & her late husband, A M D Turnbull, senior commissioner in Tanganyika Territory.' This cannot be precise, as they were in Malawi between 1904-14 and in Tanganyika between 1916 and 1930. See the curatorial comment on Af1950,42.1.a.
Nos.1 to 21 are recorded in the Register as from Tanganyika; nos.22 to 28 are recorded as from Nyasaland, but with a question mark. Nos.29 to 34 have different records.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1950,42.8