Learn About The Gullah Culture and it's connections
An African Diaspora
Learn About The Gullah Culture and it's connections
An African Diaspora
About Us
Nakia Wigfall
Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
6th Generation descendant of enslaved Africans. I have traced my roots by the coil technique of basketry and rice production back to Sierra Leone and Senegal West Africa. Sweetgrass basket making has been in my family for over 300 years.
To hear more about my ancestry and traditions, please contact us.
Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
Sweetgrass Basketmaker
Nakia Wigfall coils long strands of fragrant, honey colored sweetgrass, binding them with pine needles and palmetto fronds using the end of a metal spoon. She is a 6th generation sweetgrass basket maker in Mount Pleasant's Gullah Community.
Sweetgrass Basketmaker
Nakia Wigfall coils long strands of fragrant, honey colored sweetgrass, binding them with pine needles and palmetto fronds using the end of a metal spoon. She is a 6th generation sweetgrass basket maker in Mount Pleasant's Gullah Community.
"I started making baskets when I was 4 years-old," she says. "I'm almost 60 so imagine how many baskets that is."
"Commercialism that's what I'm worried about. Where the story will get lost why we even do this in the first place." - Nakia Wigfall, sweetgrass basket maker
Wigfall says overdevelopment has already made sweetgrass harder to come by. Now more frequent and intense storms are taking out supplies on barrier islands.
What's more, the roadside where she's long had a basket stand has grown into a six lane highway. She's says it's just too dangerous. So she has a website and a second job.
But what she really worries about is commercialism.
"Where the story will get lost why we even do this in the first place," she says.
Slaves brought from Africa were exploited for their ability to grow rice. They coiled baskets called fanners to toss the hulls and separate the chaff. They used their skills, but not by choice.
"You know people shared a lot of blood and tears behind the baskets," she says. "That's what I want people to know."
Wigfall says cheaper, Chinese knockoffs are turning up and some basket makers are teaching the skill once considered sacred.
sweetgrass_basket_weavers.mp3Listen to: Sweetgrass basket makers talk about the challenges they face. - A production of South Carolina Public RadioLISTEN • 4:02
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Sweetgrass Baskets - More Than Art
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