Native American Basket
My intention the other day when I ventured to the thrift store was to find cheap plastic continuers to help with basement cleanup. Instead, this handmade Native American basket yelled at me from the shelf. I mean I literally stopped in my tracks and looked at it sitting high on a shelf. I did not actually NEED this basket – and, in fact, already own another very similar one (the prior one purchased at a flea market 20 years ago). That said, when I see something as powerful as a 1930s American Indian basket for $4.99 I cannot leave it behind.
This beauty was on a shelf filled with the myriad of cheap, mass produced baskets you find in any thrift store. The majority are made in China, used and discarded as they have very little value, and certainly are not heirlooms. This one, however, has a story connected to it. I am not a Native American history expert by any means, but I appreciate hand work and the skills needed to make something to sustain life. In this case, by a Ho-Chunk woman living in Wisconsin in the 1930s. Like all indigenous tribes in the United States, the history of The Ho-Chunk Nation (formerly known as Wisconsin Winnebago Tribe) is heartbreaking, but there are currently around 7700 members residing throughout Wisconsin.
The Ho-Chunk basket I found is a “market basket” and was made c.1930. It is large – measuring 17” across and 10” tall, not including the handle. It was hand woven with splints from Black Ash trees. Some of the material was dyed green and red, but the colors faded significantly. (The green and red can be seen in areas where an unexposed under piece is poking through the weave). The baskets typically were woven by the tribal women, both for use in their homes as well as for sale.
The process of creating these baskets was arduous in the extreme. First, an ash tree was located, then cut, hauled and harvested. The wood was processed for the basket making by debarking the log, splitting and pounding the tree rings into strips (splints), and scraping and smoothing the splints to make them thin and pliable (1). Then came the processes of yarning, twisting, twining, braiding, soaking, gauging and coloring the materials. The colors were created with natural items, not boxed dye we use these days. That meant collecting minerals, berries and other fruits, flowers, seeds, roots, and grasses. Moss, algae, and juniper berries yielded green colors. Walnut shell and birch bark created browns. Purple hues were made from blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and rotten maple wood. Sumac berries, dogwood bark and beets produced reds. Yellow coloring was manufactured from onion skins, goldenrod stems and flowers, birch leaves, and sagebrush (2).
So, if you are not exhausted yet from reading that process, keep in mind the weaver was not finished. After making the baskets, she would either go door to door or set up a roadside stand to sell them to locals and tourists. In addition, a La Crosse Tribune article notes that in the 1930s, the tribal women would sell their products in La Crosse in front of Doerflinger’s Department Store (which closed in 1984) (1). Between 1930 and 1940, increasing numbers of Ho-Chunk women made baskets as a means to supplement their household incomes. By the 1940s this was replaced with other jobs such as cleaning houses or factor work, as younger generations did not want to do the backbreaking work involved in weaving a basket. (3)
The black ash is a tree native to Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the Emerald Ash Bore (EAB) has decimated the native ash populations in the US, and with it, destroyed the raw materials needed to make these baskets. There are a few artists trying to preserve and teach the skill of weaving these baskets, and there is a concerted effort to locate trees that withstand the EAB, or find other options. According to one basket artist, Kelly Church, the black ash is important to their tribe’s creation story – it provides medicines, housing, food. And those trees, and thus this artistry, are at risk of being lost. As a contemporary weaver from Maine, Jennifer Neptune so succinctly put it: “We have an obligation to that tree to do everything in our power to help it survive – for itself, our culture and our baskets…Black ash is a metaphor for being Native…It is Indigenous. It is how we survived: being flexible, without breaking” (4)
While it hurts my heart that someone would get rid of this treasure, I am grateful that same person thought to contribute it to charity. This allowed their “trash” to become my treasure, and helped fund a charitable group. We are all better off when this economy of “reuse, reduce, recycle” is successful. There is way too much STUFF out there, so to avoid “new” and find treasures is a source of great joy to me. In this case, a truly “made in America” item was rescued – something made with a great deal of effort by an indigenous person living in our country. Now to decide what to do with these baskets that I am basket-sitting!
1. From article in La Crosse Tribune on November 14, 2020
2. www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS2626
3. Adriana Greci Green, curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas as The Fralin Museum of Art, UVA
4. https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/black-ash-basketry