Okinawan Basketry

75 years ago today, my father earned his Purple Heart during the Battle of Okinawa in WWII. He was an Army Signal Corps Combat Photographer.  In November 2019, I was able to do some research at the National Archives, Still Photographs Division.  While I was looking for photos of him (there were three, but that's another story), I was also finding photos that he took.  And while I was looking, I found baskets.  Hopefully, I will be able to return to do more research in coming years.

Caption:  "A pretty native woman carries a basket of sweet potatoes, that she has just harvested upon her head at the Okinawa Agricultural Experimental Station. 12 Aug 1945. Signal Corps Photo #CPA-45-14118 (Roberts)."  SC 370927
Roberts is the photographer.

One plant identified as used in basketry in Okinawa is Flagellaria Indica "Whip Vine," an Okinawan native plant.  Wikipedia says it is: "A strong climber, it grows often up to 15 m tall, with thick cane-like stems exceeding 15 mm in diameter." 

Below: detail of baskets on the ground. They look as if they could be made of thick cane-like stems of whip vine.

Also known as False Rattan, Flagellaria Indica "is often gathered from the wild for local use, mainly as a source of material for making baskets etc, but also as a food and medicine."
http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Flagellaria+indica

Joseph Barabas, Signal Corps Cameraman, holds onto his  camera while being evacuated for medical treatment. Okinawa, 6/20/1945,  3233 Signal Corps  Photo, photographer unknown. SC 209740

Otis Mason and More Blogging

While obeying "shelter in place" orders for COVID-19, I thought I'd get a lot of blog entries written. That didn't happen, but I did make a list of basket subjects to write about. I am eking some out.

My problem is not getting an idea, but writing up my story and then hunting for references to legitimize what I've said. Working with baskets for decades leads to what seems like intrinsic knowledge, but if I'm going to put something on my blog, it should be supported, and not be there just because I said so.

For me, conducting internet research is time consuming, as there are so many rabbit holes that need to be explored, and tangents occur; thus, I haven't written many blog entries lately.  For instance, eking. I thought it might be eeking, Spellchecker said no. Merriam-Webster says eking, and it is archaic. Eeking relates to leg hairs in the Urban Dictionary. I didn't need to know that for this blog, but that's why my blogging is educational for me yet labor intensive.  When I consult my physical basketry library instead of the internet, I am met with a similar fate - I pull a few books and get lost in them, and generate more ideas for blog posts....


Someone asked me about good books to have if you are interested in basketry.

This is Mason, an early and excellent resource for any basketry scholar.

"Aboriginal American Basketry: Studies in a Textile Art Without Machinery" by Otis Tufton Mason. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year Ending June 30, 1902. Report of the U.S. National Museum. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904. Mason was a Curator, Division of Ethnology.

 My copy is a "Rio Grande Classic" printed in 1970 by The Rio Grande Press.  I found it in a used bookstore in 1987, and it continues to be well-used and well-appreciated.


Thank you for your patience as I eke out my blog posts, and take care as we weather the COVID-19 storm.

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.]

Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market 2019, Anchorage

http://firstamericanartmagazine.com/charlotte-jensen/A year ago at this time, end of February/start of March 2019, I was heading home from Anchorage, Alaska and the 84th Annual Fur Rendezvous. What began as a fur trading event has morphed into Rondy, a ten-day celebration of all things Anchorage and Native Alaska, including the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.  What had drawn me northward was the Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market, where I would eventually chat with about two dozen artists.  Most were weavers, as the primary reason for the trip was to research Alaska Native basketry.

John Jensen, Mathew Skaga Dewitt, Bryn, Marilyn Skau

Market co-chairs John Jensen and Marilyn Skau gave me a warm welcome on Thursday morning, day two of the five-day Market. Then Marilyn proceeded to walk me through the maze of tables at the Dimond Center, introducing me to various artists and all of the basket weavers who were at their tables when we passed by. All but one were happy to be interviewed; the one apologized because her eyesight was going and she no longer wove, so she did not feel that she could contribute. Of course she could have! It would have been wonderful to hear her stories, but she was reluctant and I was not pushy.  The next three days were spent talking with as many weavers as I could, sharing tangerines and Sunkist candies which I had brought from California. Regrettably, I was not able to spend time with all of the weavers, and hope to some day return to this event, which is a very important sales venue for Native Alaskan artists.

Marilyn Skau sits on Jeff Swan's carved wooden chair, "The Throne."

Sadly, Marilyn passed later in 2019. She was a well-respected powerhouse, always on the move, cheerfully dealing with the artists' registrations and making sure the Market flowed smoothly. In honor of Marilyn, John, and the Ashlock family who provide the Dimond Center as a service to Native artists, I'd like to share my "Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market Report" from First American Art Magazine Blog:

http://firstamericanartmagazine.com/charlotte-jensen/

Yosemite and California Baskets at the Heard Museum

Baskets by Tina Charlie (Mono Lake Paiute, 1869 - 1962)

Last autumn, I was thrilled to be able to do a little research on baskets in storage at the Heard Museum. At the same time, it was opening weekend for: David Hockney’s Yosemite and Masters of California Basketry   https://heard.org/hockney/

My time spent in the galleries culminated in the exhibition review in the current issue of First American Art Magazine,  http://firstamericanartmagazine.com/current-issue/

The baskets are on loan from Yosemite National Park, various museums and private collectors, plus a few from the Heard's own collection. David Hockney's (British, b. 1937) works include digital art and photographic collages.

Showpiece basket by Mary Benson (Pomo, 1877-1930)

Carrie Bethel baskets (Mono Lake Paiute, 1898-1974)

Heard Museum Basket 818BA-a&b from
the Fred Harvey collection

Heard Museum curators put together an outstanding companion exhibition Beyond Yosemite: California Basketry from the Heard Museum Collection. I snapped a few photos here, including my only selfie.

George Wharton James Collection
in the Southwest Museum of the American
Indian Collection, P.445, Autry Museum
of the American West 

A few weeks later, I was working on another project, and was reviewing some of the online Southwest Museum Collection items on the Autry Center of the American West website.  Imagine my surprise when I spotted this beauty:

http://collections.theautry.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=M205587;type=102

Click on the link to see that it is absolutely the same basket (verified by Heard curators when I sent them the link!).  The postcard photograph is identified as P.445, George Wharton James Collection, from the Braun Research Library/Southwest Museum. Postcard identifies it as a Hupa basket, made between 1895-1923.

If you are in Phoenix AZ before April 20, 2020, I urge you to see these incredible baskets. And the David Hockney art is spectacular as well, but it's not the focus of my basket blog. 

Apache Baskets at Rockhound State Park

Rockhound State Park Visitor Center, NM

The other day I was in Rockhound State Park, a bit southeast of Deming, NM. Delightedly, I found a trio of Apache baskets in the small visitor center.

Among the Apache people, basketry was a part of everyday life. Their utilitarian baskets, such as water bottles and gathering baskets, are made by twining. In the twining technique, a fiber or weft is twisted over and under a stable base material or warp. Sumac (Rhus trilobata), willow (Salix nigra and S. lasiandra), and devil’s claw (Proboscidea, in the family Martyniaceae) are the three primary types of plants used by Apache weavers.

The exhibit photo here depicts a pair of Chiricahua women. From the left, there is a fringed gathering or burden basket on its side, then she is holding what looks to be a tus, a small water bottle. These two baskets are made by twining. The woman on the right has a basketry tray to the right of her knee, and a large olla just behind her. These two baskets were made using the coiled technique. In coiling, the weaving material or weft is stitched around the foundation, or warp. Among the Apache, most coiled basketry is made of willow with the design work done in black devil’s claw.

Chiricahua Apache Camp circa 1885, photo Ben Wittick, courtesy Museum of New Mexico

1   "Modern Mesalero Apache Basket"

2  "Mescalero Apache Burden Basket"

3   White Mountain Apache Burden Basket"

The three baskets on display were hard to see up close and photograph due to some wicked glare in the visitor center. They are twined of split sumac with a sumac rod as their foundations. 

Basket 1 is diagonally twined of sumac, the color used in the design is the bark of the sumac, the white is peeled sumac. Basket 3's design is made the same way, yet it is plain twined. Basket 2 is diagonally twined on the lower part, with several rows of plain twining at the top edge. The bright orange and black banded design is achieved through the use of commercial dye on the sumac. All of the baskets have leather (deerskin?) trim and fringe. 

Baskets 1 and 3 have metal tinklers. The purpose of the decoration is to add audio and visual pleasure to those within ear-shot and eye-view, while also serving to scare away rattlesnakes from food-gathering areas in the desert.  At the visitor center, the volunteers said that there were four types of rattlesnakes in the immediate area to watch out for: diamondbacks, Mojave green, blacktail, and banded rock rattlesnakes. Luckily, I didn't see any snakes while hiking. 

Profile photo info

I was asked about my profile photo: it was taken in 2013, during my first Resident Fellowship at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY. I was delighted to see this Payomkawichum (Luiseño) negative design basket, black-dyed juncus and sumac on a deer grass bundle foundation (NA-106-769).  See it here:  https://collections.centerofthewest.org/view/basket_cahuilla_southern_california_mission_indians_sumac_deergrass_juncus_g?q=NA.106.769&partial=0&bbm=1&wg=1&cfm=1&pim=1&dmnh=1&ondisplay=0&offset=0&maxOffset=0

I'm wearing a shirt from the Grace Hudson Museum,
a great place to visit if you love Pomo basketry.