SAVING THE EKIBBO

It used to be that one of the highlights of the kwanjula ceremony was the groom’s escorts sashayed in bearing gifts in baskets (Ebibbo) on their heads.

Now increasingly the Ekibbo is being replaced by wrapped gift packs, which while they serve the purpose are taking away an important part of the experience and killing a long held tradition.

Enter Ann Kalanzi, a retired civil servant  determined to reverse the trend.

A few years ago she got into her head that producing the shallow baskets would make for a good opportunity.

But the more she investigated its prospects the more she realised there were  larger  issues at play.

The Ekibbo is made by coiling banana leaf stems, wrapped in fibre from the Yoruba soft cane (Ekijulu).

However

supply of the Yoruba Soft Cane is dwindling. The plant which grows wild in wetlands and forest, maybe going extinct as people clear bush and reclaim wetlands for farming and settlement...

“So as part of a long term plan to continue with production we have been forced to consider growing our own crop,” Kalanzi explained. She is currently working an acre to produce the plant which is propagated through its root tubers and lobbying other and owners to commit land to the plant.

So just like that she finds herself concerned with environmental issues and conservation.

"The skill of making these baskets too, is falling away as young girls and ladies who were the main producers are going to school, finding more gainful employment and the tradition is not being passed down the generations...

The “Taasa Ekibbo” ( Save the Kibbo basket initiative) is still in its early stages, she has identified two women groups in  Kiboga and Masaka districts, to make the products.

Nevertheless she has a spare room full of baskets in her house to show for the groups’ effort.

“They can do up to 100 baskets a week… it doesn’t take much of their time, its part time work for them after they have finished their daily chores. The volume is function of their skill levels not the amount of time they dedicate to the craft currently,” said Kalanzi.

In the meantime she looks for market.

In 2005 the Uganda Export Promotion Board (UEPB) did a survey which showed that the most marketable handcrafts from Uganda were mats and baskets.

Along with training from the International Trade Center (ITC) she is looking to diversify the project offerings to add table mats, costas, lidded baskets, desktop baskets for storing jewelry or stationary.

“We are still in prototype stage and the ladies can adapt their skills to whatever design,” Kalanzi said.

While she places as a major goal, the saving of the Ekibbo and the traditions around it, she has worked out other products are more marketable and have greater utility in everyday living.

She had an array of her products laid before her when I visited and to my untrained eye the quality is consistent and good.

“Quality control is not a major challenge. The quality of the Ekibbo was and is a mark of pride for the maker…. Remember traditionally a girl would leave home laden with these baskets, she couldn’t turn up at her groom’s place with poor quality baskets. The quality is kind of inbuilt in the tradition,” she explained.

But will happen when she has to mass produce the baskets to satisfy a growing market?

“The women are supervised by the more experienced basket makers so we are counting on that.”

She has been exploring markets, a combination of lower production and demand for the baskets means there has to be a concerted effort to resuscitate their use in current times.

“I have toyed with Mengo (The seat of the Buganda Kingdom) getting involved in this project as a way to preserve a useful skill and conserve an important tradition…. Covid-19 got in the way but that is the plan,” she said. 

Looking further afield while tourists have shown some interest they have been pulled towards the smaller items in her portfolio – the jewelry/stationary baskets, which are small and easy to carry in their luggage.

The traditional craft shops she has found have a greater taste for the more colourful rafia woven baskets.

She is counting on the history and tradition of the Ekibbo however, to win her a niche in the market.

She says the customers are too are moving away from the utility value to seeing them as decorative pieces.

“For example the Oliugali (winnowing basket) is now being used as wall pieces and table mats. So there is hope.”

It is an interesting project and one to watch, an examaple of how, maybe,  markets can rescue tradition when all the well wishers are content to give only lip service or shake their heads at the demise of yet another tradition, swept aside by modern culture.