Spoon; Leso la legong

Item

Title

Spoon; Leso la legong

Creator

Unrecorded

Description

Physical Description: Large wooden spoon with shallow circular bowl. The end of the handle, rim and one side of the base are blackened as decoration. Used in the porridge cooking process.
Contextual Description: SL 1:34:58an interesting thing with these spoons from what I'm seeing and from what I saw that time is that most of them were never used. They were like bought new. Why am I saying this? - otherwise the burn marks wouldn't still be there. They are the first to go after a couple of washes.

The above notes are from a transcription by Kathleen Lawther of a discussion between Gase Kediseng, JoAnn McGregor, Nicola Stylianou, Scobie Lekhuthile and Winani Thebele which took place at the Khama III Memorial Museum on the 5th of August 2019. To listen to the full recording please follow the link below.

Publisher

Making African Connections

Date

Pre 1899

Type

PhysicalObject

Format

whole: 490 mm x 100 mm x 110 mm
Type of wood used for this is light coloured wood from either the Motlopi; Boscia albitrunca or Morula; Sclerocarya birrea trees. [TS]

Identifier

R4007/79

Source

Collected by Reverend William Charles Willoughby, a Christian missionary, in what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate (1885-1966). It is now the Republic of Botswana, having gained independence from Britain in 1966.
From 1889-92 Willoughby was pastor at Union Street Church, Brighton (now The Font pub). From 1893 to 1898 he worked for the London Missionary Society in Bechuanaland. He assembled this collection of objects during this period. This was a period of social and technological changes and these objects represent traditional lifestyles and skills, rather than the contemporary lives of the people Willoughby met.

Willoughby's collection was loaned to Brighton Museum in 1899 when he returned to the UK. The loan was converted into a donation in 1936, and accessioned as acquisition R4007.

Some objects were re-numbered with the WA (World Art) numbering system in the 2000s. These numbers have been reverted to the original R4007/... numbers where possible for consistency in 2019.
William Charles Willoughby
Botswana, Southern Africa, Africa
1893-1898

Space/Place

Botswana, Southern Africa, Africa
Cultural Group: Tswana

Rights

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Item sets

Linked resources

Filter by property

Relation
Title Alternate label Class
Woodcarving