From the remote rainforests of the Darien Peninsula of Panama, the Wounaan and Embera people weave traditional fine quality baskets using fibers from the fronds of native chunga and nahuala palm trees. Extracting their dyes from rainforest plants, bark, leaves and fruits, they achieve a variety of bold and bright natural colors.

Their baskets are highly prized for the quality of their weaving and for their bold geometric designs, figurative motifs of animals, plants, birds and insects of the rainforest.

At Zanzibar Trading, Scott personally hand picks and commissions each of our baskets ONLY from master weavers. Some of these baskets take monhts or even a year or more of work by the weavers.

While we could sell lower quality and skill baskets for as little as $20 - $30, we choose to only buy and sell the very best baskets - of exceptional quality and skill. Highly collectable, each one is of museum quality and is crafted by master, well known weavers. The old addage, you get what you pay for really rings true here. Note that in our photographs we show you ALL angles of the baskets.. and compare the stitch size to known objects (such as dimes). Please note: if you're a collector you will notice that prices have gone up significantly over the last couple of years, especially recently. Prices have almost doubled in the last year alone - and will continue to increase.

To read about the Wounaan and Embera people, click here. (coming soon)

To read an interesting article on how these baskets are woven, including the materials used, click here. (coming soon)

Additional photos, weavers biographies, etc. are available upon request for each basket.