Baskets Topics – Access Genealogy

Pomo Basket Making

Pomo baskets were used for many practical purposes. The first use of a basket was a baby basket which was well made, and could be transported by placing it on the back and using a net and forehead band, packed at the side, or in the arms. Baskets were also used for food preparation. The weave of this basket was so tight that it would hold water. When water was added the basket material would swell, ensuring that it would continue to hold water. One would wonder how did we cook food without burning the basket. This was done by … Read more

Yuchi Basket Making

Another handicraft in the seemingly well-rounded industrial life of the Yuchi is basket making. The women possess the knowledge of at least two processes of basket weaving; the checker work and the twilled. The baskets in general are of two sorts. One is a large rough kind made of hickory or oak splints not unlike the ordinary split baskets made by the Algonkian tribes, with handles for carrying. The other kind, in the manufacture of which cane rinds are chiefly employed, is distinctly characteristic of the Southeastern and Gulf area. A collection of Yuchi baskets resembles those of the Choctaw … Read more

Choctaw Baskets

The Choctaw are excellent basket makers, although their work at the present time is greatly inferior to that of a generation ago. The best baskets are made of narrow strips of cane, Arundinaria macrosperma (Choctaw, uske), though now, at Bayou Lacomb, they are using the stems of palmetto, Serrenoa serrulata (Choctaw, tala), as cane is no longer found nearby, and to obtain it a journey has to be made to Pearl river, some fifteen or twenty miles away. The baskets now made, with few exceptions, are very crude and rather poorly formed. Brilliant aniline dyes are used in the place … Read more