Textiles and Culture: Kete Baskets

Throughout history, textiles have been used as a tool for cultural self-expression and self-preservation. Textiles tell the story of our collective humanity, our ancestral history and our desire for community building through the arts.

Take the kete basket, for example.

Originally from New Zealand, the kete basket was crafted by the indigenous Māori people. When the Māori first migrated from their homeland in Polynesia to New Zealand roughly 1,000 years ago, they quickly adapted to the colder environment by utilising the New Zealand flax that grew in abundance around them, producing practical items such as cloaks, mats and baskets.

Made by weaving the leaves of New Zealand flax called phormium tenax, kete baskets are steeped in cultural symbolism. They serve as a reminder of the resilience of the Māori people and of the skills and stories that they brought with them from Polynesia, as well as the passing down of knowledge from generation to generation.

A collection of kete baskets displayed at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan.

New Zealand flax, or phormium tenax

This passing down of generational knowledge is woven into the very fibres of the kete basket and can be traced back to Māori mythology.

According to the myth, Tāne, the god of the forests, ascended to the twelfth heaven to obtain three baskets of knowledge for the good of mankind. They were called te kete tuauri, te kete tuatea and te kete aronui, meaning the baskets of sacred knowledge, ancestral knowledge and life’s knowledge. The sacrifices Tāne made in order to obtain these baskets resulted in the knowledge that we carry with us and pass on generationally to this day.

Even when we put the cultural, historical and spiritual significance of the kete basket aside, its function as a handbag carries its own weight of storytelling behind it.

We carry our handbags with us everywhere; whether its contents are a jumbled maze of lipsticks, old receipts and weighed down key chains or just a few simple life necessities, they tell of our personal story. Holding at once a practical and at times delightfully frivolous purpose, our handbags contain an intimate portrait of our lives. It could therefore not be more fitting that the Māori people have chosen a basket as the vessel through which they tell their collective story.

Our modern take on the kete bag

Kete baskets are still very much a part of Māori culture and the construction of them has since been embraced by different cultures all over the world. At Remode Collective, we relish learning about and celebrating different cultures through the lens of textiles and the arts. We have been personally captivated by the story of the kete basket and have produced our own collection of them available for purchase under the shop section of our website.

Which of our kete bag designs is your favourite? Let us know in the comment section below!