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Basketry Milk Container (Gorfa)
 |
 |
| Name of Maker: |
Jilo Dido |
| Ethnic Affiliation: |
Borana |
| Date of Production: |
ca. 1993 |
| Locale: |
Dolollo Makkala |
| Country: |
Ethiopia |
| Dimensions: |
h. 12.5 inches |
| Media: |
plant fiber, cowries |
| Collector(s) / Donor(s): |
Raymond Silverman & Neal Sobania |
| MSUM Accession #: |
7557.283 |
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The Collector(s) / Donor(s)
Raymond Silverman, curator of "African Connections," is an associate professor of art history at Michigan State University. He also serves as adjunct curator for the African collections housed in the University's two museums. From 1979 to 1989 his research was focused in the West African countries of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, and from 1990 to the present, in Ethiopia. This object is one of several hundred artifacts that Silverman and Sobania commissioned and collected in the course of conducting research for the 1994 Michigan State University Museum exhibition, Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity.
Collector(s) / Donor(s) Statement: Silverman
Neal Sobania is Professor of History and Director of International Education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. After spending three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, he returned to graduate school, completing a Ph.D. at the University of London dealing with the history of the Dassanetch peoples of northern Kenya. Since his Peace Corps experience in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, he has been a avid collector of African material culture and possesses a significant collection of Ethiopian and Kenyan artifacts. For the last eight years, he and Silverman have been collaborating on a number of projects dealing with the visual cultures of Ethiopia.
Collector(s) / Donor(s) Statement: Sobania
The Object(s)
This is one of several types of basketry milk containers made and used by the Borana, a pastoral people who raise cattle in southern Ethiopia and adjacent parts of northern Kenya. The vegetal fibers used in their fabrication are woven very tightly, they are light and extremely durable, and serve as the ideal container for liquids. One of the key characteristics of the gorfa is the application of cowries, small white shells that enhance the beauty of the container. Among the Borana, all women are expected to learn to make woven milk containers like the gorfa. Milk containers themselves are vital objects in a culture where raising cattle is of central importance. The milk that these containers hold is a symbol of abundance. The container's symbolic meaning stems from its structure--in Borana society, weaving is associated with fertility. The container and the milk thus symbolize the ideal combination of abundance and fertility, two fundamental requirements for the reproduction and prosperity of the family and community. In this society women produce woven containers and men carve wood containers. Both types of containers may serve the same utilitarian function but they are used in different social settings. There also are containers that have both wood and basketry components and therefore require the work of both a man and a woman, usually a husband and wife or at least members of the family living in the same household. Such containers reflect a fundamental element of Borana culture, a healthy interdependence between the sexes manifest in the complementary roles men and women perform in their families and communities.
Further Information
Books and Articles
Marco Bassi. "Every Woman an Artist: Milk Containers in Borana." Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity, edited by R. Silverman, pp. 64-87, 258. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
Gudrun Dahl. "Mats and Milk Pots: The Domain of Borana Women." The Creative Communion. African Folk Models of Fertility and the Regeneration of Life, ed. A. Jacobson-Widding and Walter van Beek, pp. 129-36. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1990.
Mohammed Hassen. The Oromo of Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Labelle Prussin. "Gabra Containers," African Arts 20 (2) 1987: 36-45, 81-82.
Internet Resources
Artist Profile for Elema Boru from Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity
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