Rattlesnake at the Cowboy

In response to closed museums during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tim, head of security at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, has become an internet sensation with his tweets from around the museum.  You can read about Tim here:

https://www.boredpanda.com/national-cowboy-museum-head-of-security-twitter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=stickybar&fbclid=IwAR03rjxDWOhRS9FNxUHK7AWsH-7KGdC-b7wUUlG_qSj0a4ytpL7lLAtajzI


A tweet from Tim on March 20 said, "There's a snake in my boot!"  When I read that, there was only one thing I could think of....

In 2017, I was touring the storage of the Cowboy with wonderful Oklahoma friends. The curator knew I wanted to see the baskets. When he opened the storage cabinet, my eyes immediately went up to the juncus basket, and I said with glee, "Rattlesnake!"

Well, when you're with Oklahomans and say snake, they jump back and look for a weapon.
"Oh," I quickly amended, "not a snake, a basket with a snake!"  We all had a good laugh, and then I had a closer look. This was the beauty that I had spotted on an upper shelf.

Interesting design - two heads, one tail!

Basket storage cabinet, rattlesnake top left.

There it is, I couldn't reach it, but I could point at it!

 It is coiled of natural golden orange-colored juncus (probably Juncus textilis, a type of rush), and juncus that has been dyed black. The light material at the basket's oval start is sumac (Rhus trilobata). The interior foundation of the coil is deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens). These three materials are used in basketry throughout southern California.

This basket could have been made by a weaver from one of several tribes, but my guess is that she was probably Cahuilla.

Detail of the corners. It's hard to make rectangular baskets when using the coiled technique.
 Coiled baskets are almost always round or oval in shape.
This basket is catalog number 1983-06-67.

Cahuilla basket weaver Rosemarie Salinas "recounts a story about the rattlesnake design that has been told many times. 'A lady was making a basket. A rattlesnake kept coming and bothering her. She kept shooing it away and it kept coming back. Finally she wove it into the basket.' Among the Cahuilla, the mesaxim (rattlesnake) design is a strong symbol, and rattlesnake baskets are widely admired."
["Cahuilla Basketry: An Enduring Legacy" by Bryn Barabas Potter, First American Art Magazine, Issue #4, Fall 2014.]