An ancient traditional technique of shaping natural material into a container form. Using one of three methods—plaiting, weaving, or coiling—basket makers have created hundreds of shapes and sizes over the centuries. Their products, probably used in every society in the world, have functioned in myriad ways: as silos, sheds, vehicles, boats, furniture, garments, roofs, shoes, hats, targets, decorations, strainers, cradles, coffins, ceremonial objects, trays, houses, fans, creels, and tools. Baskets have been used as containers to hold such things as gourds, eggs, bottles, canes, weapons, milk, apples, mush, berries, water, money, cosmetics, and firewood. Traditional basketry has been produced in every size, from tiny thimble cases to giant fish-storage baskets. The range of sizes and shapes is usually dictated by function, and the raw materials by ecology. Leaves, vines, and reeds are used in tropical areas, grasses and low-growing plants in arid regions, and split wood and bark in woodland areas. In the Orient, elegance of design, attention to detail, and perfection of craftsmanship have produced some of the most exquisite baskets in existence. In Africa, where materials are plentiful and artful decoration is an accepted part of daily life, basketry has always been an important craft, and remains so today. There is still a Basketmakers’ Guild in London, and traditional (though now usually poorly made) baskets have become a popular tourist item in Europe and elsewhere. Baskets made by Native Americans are known throughout the world for their diversity of design and technique, their beauty, and their ancient history (baskets discovered in Utah have been dated from 7,000 B.C.). Researchers believe that Native Americans had well over a hundred general and specific uses for basketry. Among the colonists in the United States, traditional basketry began with simply importing European baskets and using indigenous versions. Those who later wove baskets for themselves and for sale followed their own native traditions (as they would with all of their folkways), adapting local materials where necessary. However, they often copied or modified the materials, forms, and techniques used by their neighbors as well (including Native Americans, other immigrants, and Africans). Basketry was usually a “side” profession with American immigrants, since it lent itself so readily to a spare-time occupation. Some producers became established as professionals in a few sections of the country; and sometimes whole families kept a business going, taking wagonloads of baskets around the countryside to sell. Usually, however, output was reserved for family and near-neighbor consumption. Several traditional American groups—religious, ethnic, racial, and regional—have been renowned for their basket artistry. The Shakers were justly famous for all of their fine products, among them an astounding variety of basket types. They manufactured quantities of baskets of sound construction and elegant simplicity that were sold outside the community in the early and mid-19th century. The Pennsylvania “Dutch” (German) immigrants, who settled primarily in the southeastern portion of that state, continued to make their traditional baskets from coiled rye straw (sometimes wheat and oat straw as well), round willow rods, and flat oak splints. They produced a wide array of functional forms, made almost entirely by part-time workers, usually on winter evenings. African Americans living in the coastal regions, especially in South Carolina, made coiled sweet-grass baskets that closely resemble those produced in Africa. Baskets from the Southern Appalachian Highlands demonstrate a continuity in form, since ribbed baskets were and are their best-known type. Ash, oak, elm, maple, hickory, and various barks were used, though white oak became the prevalent wood used in that region and in the Ozarks, along with young shoots of willow, a variety of vines, and other toughfibered plant materials. Finding and identifying baskets made today in a traditional manner and locating their makers is not easy, though it is possible with diligent research. In the case of old baskets, correlating them with their makers is virtually impossible. Basket makers almost never signed their works, nor did they keep records. City directories, Census records, and other standard historical documents seldom uncover basket weavers; they simply were not listed, since the craft was nearly always a side profession. House and farm inventories, store records, and oral tradition have been the most fruitful, albeit limited, sources for uncovering their history. In the mid-19th century, machine-made baskets decimated a once thriving business in the United States, and younger men turned to other trades instead. (There are few reports of White women basket makers, only “helpers,” which may simply reflect a bias on the part of writers.) The Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century helped avoid a total decline of craftsmanship during the Industrial Revolution. In the early 20th century, the Rural Handicrafts movement also came to the fore, supporting crafts as art, as recreation, and as a source of rural income, especially for residents of the Southern Appalachian Highlands. This type of activity was interrupted by World War II, and for several decades basket-making declined precipitously. More recently, with the wave of nostalgia for the “good old days,” along with a revolt against our society’s plastic, disposable lifestyle, basketmaking has experienced such a resurgence that the few remaining traditional weavers cannot meet increasing demand for their products. Baskets had, of course, been a necessary adjunct to a number of important occupations, such as farming, fishing, hunting, the production of cheese, honey, and cotton, and the wood industries. They were used in numerous household activities and were popular gift items, too. But those early baskets were nearly all woven with function as the primary consideration. Recently, instead of being used only for functional purposes, baskets have acquired a new role as decorative objects. Contemporary artists utilize traditional techniques, but with a freedom from the constraints of the usual formdictated-by-function, which allows for innovative, artistic approaches. Still, for many who learned in the traditional way by example, either in a family or a community setting, there is little experimentation, and the old ways are considered the best (and also the best sellers). Preparing the wood splints for plaiting and weaving is one of the most difficult aspects of basketmaking. It entails finding a tall, healthy tree, straight and relatively knot free (or other suitable, easier material), chopping it down, and then splitting it into sections. After the bark is removed, the wood, after being started with a knife, is pulled into long strips with the hands. The strips condnue to be pulled apart by hand, until they are the desired thinness. At this point, those artisans making flat splints scrape and smooth the wood on their laps on a shaving horse, using a sharp knife. Those making round splints or rods (a rare technique today) have several more steps to perform. First they pull a one-fourth- to onehalf-inch splint through a series of metal dies set into a board. The board is secured and the dies are filed sharp; as the splint is pulled through the die with pliers, it is neatly shaved. A rod of the desired diameter is achieved by pulling it through successively smaller holes.
There are three types of basket construction: plaiting, weaving, and coiling. Plaiting consists of working flat materials in two opposite directions, interweaving them at right angles in either an over one/under one pattern, or an over two/under two pattern. When weaving, the basket maker works warps or stakes, held together by wefts. In one type of weaving, wickerwork, a single weft is woven through the stakes; in twining, two or more wefts are twisted and locked around the stakes. Weaving can be done with either flat or round splints. When constructing a plaited or woven basket, the maker constructs a bottom first. In plaiting, splints are laid out, usually on the floor or on a table, and then interwoven into a bottom of the desired shape. These splints are then bent up at each side and plaited in an over/under pattern with splints running at right angles to form the sides of the basket. A rim is bound on, and a handle is then inserted and lashed into place. In weaving, the bottom resembles a spider web, with spokes radiating from a circular core. When using flat splints, those spokes are pulled or bent up to become uprights for the sides. When making round-rod baskets, new rods are inserted into the bottom and bent up for the stakes around which the weavers are manipulated. Coiling consists of winding a round bundle of tightly gathered material—usually a type of grass or straw—into a spiral and sewing it together at regular intervals with a binder. The binder can be either a long strand from the bundle itself, or a different material altogether. Collecting materials for this method is less arduous than for the other two methods of basketry, since sweet grass, pine needles, palmetto, and rush, for example, are easier by far to harvest than trees. A basket is begun by gathering and knotting a handful of central fiber into a bundle of the desired diameter (often one-fourth inch), then wrapping a portion tightly with a flexible binder. Turning the coil clockwise (usually), the maker forms a continuous spiral, using a needle or an awl to girdle the grass with one stitch, and then attach it to the preceding row with another. Shape is dictated by the placement of the subsequent coils in relation to those preceding them. It must be emphasized that, as technical as a description becomes, it suggests only a few of the steps involved in these often arduous processes. As basket maker Dwight Stump of Hocking County, Ohio, admitted, sometimes the work becomes tedious. One day, chuckling, he commented: At times I have a notion to quit. Like everything, it gets monotonous. Sometimes I have to stop and do something else, mebbe two, three months. Then I wonder how I’d go to make baskets, and I go back to makin’ baskets again. Yeah, it’s like an old basket maker used to tell me, “When you get in the Basket makers’ Row once, it’s hard to get out.” I don’t know why, it just kind of grows on a person. You get attached to it. (Joyce 1989) Rosemary O.Joyce