The divination baskets of south Central Africa are woven for a specific purpose. The baskets, known as <i>lipele</i>, contain sixty or so small articles, from seeds, claws, and minuscule horns to wooden carvings. Each article has its own name and symbolic meaning, and collectively they are known as <i>jipelo</i>. For the Luvale and related peoples, the <i>lipele</i> is more than a container of souvenirs; it is a tool, a source of crucial information from the ancestral past and advice for the future.

In <i>Along an African Border</i>, anthropologist Sónia Silva examines how Angolan refugees living in Zambia use these divination baskets to cope with daily life in a new land. Silva documents the special processes involved in weaving the baskets and transforming them into oracles. She speaks with diviners who make their living interpreting <i>lipele</i> messages and speaks also with their knowledge-seeking clients. To the Luvale, these baskets are capable of thinking, hearing, judging, and responding. They communicate by means of <i>jipelo</i> articles drawn in configurations, interact with persons and other objects, punish wrongdoers, assist people in need, and, much like humans, go through a life course that is marked with an initiation ceremony and a special burial. The <i>lipele</i> functions in a state between object and person.

Notably absent from <i>lipele</i> divination is any discussion or representation in the form of symbolic objects of the violence in Angola or the Luvale's relocation struggles--instead, the consultation focuses on age-old personal issues of illness, reproduction, and death. As Silva demonstrates in this sophisticated and richly illustrated ethnography, <i>lipele</i> help people maintain their links to kin and tradition in a world of transience and uncertainty.