| Duration: | 9 Hour(s) - 0 Minute(s) |
| Tour Category: | Full Day Tours |
Visit The Gabane Pottery, a locally owned pottery workshop. Travel to another Village called Thamaga and see the local women-established pottery workshop. Then travel to another village called Kopong to view a youth Pottery workshop. This is to give tourists the different types and designs that our pottery workshops make.
Includes: Transport, Lunch, refreshments, and a guide
Excludes: Tips and any other personal spending accounts
Explore More About Pottery Making Skills in Botswana:
Earthenware pottery-making skills in Botswana’s Kgatleng District - Earthenware pottery-making skills are practiced among the Bakgatla ba Kgafela community in south-eastern Botswana. The women potters use clay soil, weathered sandstone, iron oxide, cow dung, water, wood, and grass to make lots of different forms, designs, and styles that relate to the traditional practices and beliefs of the community. Pots are used for storing beer, fermenting sorghum meals, fetching water, cooking, ancestral worship, and traditional healing rituals.
When collecting the soil, the master potter communicates with the ancestors through meditation so that she will be guided to the ideal spot. After collection the weathered sandstone and clay soil are pounded using a mortar and pestle, then sieved and the resulting powders are mixed with water to form the clay body.
The pots are slab-built, fashioned by hand into round, conical, or oval shapes starting from the base and ending with the rim, and smooth with a wooden paddle. Once decorated, the pots are fired in a pit kiln. Earthenware skills are transmitted to daughters and granddaughters through observation and practice. However, the practice is at risk of extinction because of the decreasing number of master potters, low prices for finished goods, and the increasing use of mass-produced containers.
Once the form of the pot has been created, decorative patterns are added using natural oxides. Today, pots are produced mainly in the south and east of the country, where the best clay soils occur. There are commercial pottery centers in Thamaga, Molepolole, Kanye, and Gaborone.
