Basketry in Mesogi (Pafos-Cyprus)

Alexandra Pambouka
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read

All the information below is taken and translαted from Mr Onisiforos Neophytou’s booklet, The Basketry in Mesogi, Pafos, 2014

There are no written testimonials about when people first started basketmaking in Mesogi. It might have been around the end of the 19th century or the beginning of 20th century, due to the lack of fertile ground and the large amount of cane found across the small rivers.

Apart from canes people also used some small and bendy branches coming from wild shrubs called ’ploathkia’; terebinth, pistacia, vitex, myrtle, woody fleabane and storax.

Shrubs for basketmaking, A. Pambouka

The first baskets were woven by men but later women took over and kept the tradition going. That was because men were forced to work as laborers and artisans for financial and social reasons. Sometimes they left the village for a long time to work in Amiantos’ mines.

Mesogi was very famous for its basketry. It provided baskets to the entire island! Almost every family had their own ‘worksite’. Each member of the family helped in the process of basketmaking.

The only difficulty women faced was to find shrubs to use. They used to travel by bus to other villages and collect the shrubs cut by farmers.

Kinds of baskets and names

  1. Basket (kalàthi) — for shopping
  2. Kofína — for transportation and product storage
  3. Paneri (half Kofína, with a wide base) — for laundry or fishing
  4. Koukkourkà (long and narrow basket with a diametre of 50–60 cm and 2 metre long approx.) — for chicken transportation.
  5. Koukkoúra (narrow, with 60–70 cm length) — for transporting birdlime (bird traps)
  6. Tirokanià — for keeping cheese
  7. Tziimos — donkey and ox muzzle
  8. Kalamotií — cane weaved panels for the roof

Preparation

Remove the leaves from the canes. Split every cane into 4 pieces (ftéles) using two crossed sticks. Push from the top to the bottom of the cane, applying force. Then, soak some of them.

Cane Soaking in a house in Mesogi, A. Pambouka

For the base

Put a nail on the floor and attach 9 ftéles in a radius manner. Weave the base and put the rest of the ftéles in a bundle so that they become uprights.

For the body

First make the pashógyros (whaling with shrub branches) and then continue with limnià. For decoration reasons the Ploumín weave is used. For making it stronger, make the Zonàri weave.

For the border

Wrap the uprights and then make the hundle or the fkià.

*Nowadays women, instead of using branches of shrubs, they use dyed cane in green or reddish malachite.

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