Woven Mat, "Mkeka"
date: label: Accession Date
content: 15 Sep 2008
label: Collection Date
content: 2007
name: label: Collector
content: Anna Casagrande
label: Donor Name
content: Dr. Krystyne Loughran Bini
notes: label: Notes
content: Large mat, woven in a chevron pattern. 2 cm mulberry colored borders along the shorter sides, woven separately from the mat and attached with a beige stitch. Light blue-green stripes border on the longer sides. The mat consists of stripes of alternating solid stripes of dark purple, gold, light blue-green, mulberry and cream that run lengthwise. There are 51 solid stripes on the mat. The solid stripes are punctuated by one solid cream stripe and 6 patterned stripes: 3 of mulberry and cream, 2 dark purple and cream, and one green and cream. The mulberry patterned stripes consist of 2 cream colored bars of small diamonds alternating with a large cream diamond with a cross pattern in its center. The border is mulberry and cream interwoven line. The dark purple patterned stripes consist of two concentric cream diamonds alternating with a cream colored bar of diamonds bordered with a dark purple and cream interwoven line. The green patterned stripe consists of a diamond with two right angles extending out of its top and bottom corners with a small diamond in the center alternating with two bars of cream diamonds with an interwoven green and cream border. The patterned stripes vary between 5 and 5.5 cm in width while the solid stripes vary between 2 and 2.75 cm in width. There is also a tag with the mat with the number 70439, Air Kenya, the Air Kenya logo, and the contact information for Air Kenya in black on one side and the word NAIROBI on the other.
label: Notes
content: According to Mary Jo Arnoldi, Curator of African Ethnology, mats of this type are now only made in Kipini. This mat is the type of Swahili mat that is currently on exhibit in the African Voices hall which is catalogue number E409937 and was collected by Neville Chittick in 1968 for the Museum. Dr. Arnoldi asked Krystyne Loughran Bini to procure another mat in the same style for NMNH to be use in rotation with the 1968 mat in the African Voices exhibit. Dr. Loughran Bini found out that the mats are not made in Lamu, but only in the village of Kipini. She asked a colleague in Lamu, Anna Casagrande, to go to Kipini to obtain a mat. Dr. Loughran Bini donated the mat to the Smithsonian collections in the name of her parents Ambassador John Loughran and Katheryn Loughran.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 28 Dec 2017
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Kipindi, Kenya, Africa
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Swahili
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 2047702
label: USNM Number
content: E432580-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mat
physicalDescription: label: Length
content: 183 cm
label: Width
content: 158 cm