Blanket of power holds local ties

What came to the Lesotho King as a gift from England in 1860 has now featured in the Hollywood block buster, Black Panther in 2018.

The basotho blanket represents a rich cultural heritage making it fit for royals of Lesotho and the fictional Wakanda.

Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter together with her costume department crew traveled to Lesotho and reportedly got permission from the Basotho people to feature the traditional blankets in Black Panther.

The woolen fibres that make up the basotho blanket are dyed at Aranda factory in Isithebe from where it is sent to Johannesburg to be spun and turned into the high-quality, water and snow proof woolen blanket.

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Aranda director Harry Pieroni said they are the only factory in the world to make these famous blankets.

“We dye about 30 tonnes of fibre a month. The blankets require a three week lead time and we make about 60 000 basotho blankets a year,” said Personi, who has been with the company since the 80’s.

The modern factory works with the latest German machinery and employs 175 people.

They also make various other products such as initiation and ceremonial blankets which appeared in the recent movie The Wound as well as throws, pet blankets and even handbags.

The Basotho blankets have various meanings and are used for specific traditional ceremonies:

1. Boys preparing for the circumcision ritual wear a special fertility blanket known as amoholobela. After the ceremony he is considered to have reached manhood and wears another kind of blanket – the lekhokolo.
2. A groom wears a motlotlehi. Men pin the blanket over their right shoulder.
3. A bride spends a lot of time trying on and selecting blankets for her trousseau. Women’s blankets are designed to be pinned over their bosom.
4. When their first child is born, the husband will give his wife an aserope.
5. Certain traditional events will call for specific blankets for example, on Independence Day or National Tree Planting Day, a man of substance could wear three blankets at once, namely the Torch blanket, a Victoria (quite the status symbol named after the beloved Queen Victoria who visited Basutoland in 1897 during her Jubilee year and gave King Lerotholi Letsie a blanket as a gift) and a Sandringham.

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