The 1841 Methodist Parsonage in the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem, Oregon includes a display of baskets.
The Methodist Parsonage is shown above.
In their chapter on basketry in the Handbook of North American Indians, Richard Conn and Mary Dodds Schlick write:
“Basketry is surely one of the most significant, and least appreciated, creative and technological achievements of the world’s peoples. Unlike the more-esteemed potters or beadworkers, basketmakers must create the basic form while simultaneously planning and placing the decoration correctly.”
In her entry on basketry in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Sherrie Smith-Ferri reports:
“Most baskets were decorated, often with elaborate geometric designs depicting various environmental features, such as quail topknots, lightning, or shark’s teeth. The finished basket, with its complexities of spacing, balance, symmetry, and placement of design elements onto a three-dimensional framework, had to be conceptualized at the start. Nothing was written; the weaver carried this intricate image in her mind even as she focused on the technical demands of basket construction.”
Writing in 1904 about Indian basketmakers, Otis Mason, in his book American Indian Basketry, reports:
“Her patterns are in her soul, in her memory and imagination, in the mountains, watercourses, lakes, and forests, and in those tribal tales and myths which dominate the actions of every hour. She hears suggestions from another world.”
According to the Museum display:
“Woven baskets have two basic sets of elements: stiff stakes or spokes for the warp, and more flexible fibers which are woven in and out to form the weft.”
In his book Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North America, Charles Miles writes:
“Woven basketry divides into five fairly distinct forms or methods: checkerwork, twilling, wickerwork, wrapped work, and twined weaving.”
The Museum display explains some of the different methods of making baskets.
Twined baskets have two or more flexible elements encircling another base element. In making twined baskets, the materials must be flexible. Twined baskets often use reeds, cedar bark, grasses, and/or roots.
Plaited baskets are made using identical materials in the warp (usually vertical) and the weft (usually horizontal). The materials for plaited baskets are usually flat fibers that have been split or pounded. These materials can come from wood, river cane, bark, and/or flat reeds.
Coiled baskets are made using a bundle of fibers which is stitched into a spiraling round form. Designs may include imbrication in which a material, such as feathers, is folded under each sewing stitch on the outer surface. The bundled materials can include pine needles, straw, willow, and grasses.
The handle on this basket indicates that it was made for the tourist trade.
Shown above is basket from the Grande Ronde Reservation.
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series presents historical and/or cultural American Indian topics. More about American Indian baskets from this series:
Indians 101: Plateau Indian Basket Hats and Trinket Baskets (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Southwestern Baskets in the Maryhill Museum (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Klikitat Baskets (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Plateau Indian Baskets (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Feathered Pomo Baskets (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Aleut Basketry (Photo Diary)