File:How to make baskets (1911) (14597080500).jpg

Identifier: howtomakebaskets00whit (find matches)
Title: How to make baskets
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: White, Mary, 1869- Doubleday, Nelli Blanchan De Graff, Mrs., 1865-1918
Subjects: Basket making
Publisher: Doubleday, Page and co.
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho

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hair, which never break, confinethe leather strap by which the squaw suspends thebottle from her head or her ponys saddle. Suchbottles may be made to contain a pint or severalgallons of water. In the division of labor among primitive people,at least, women have always taken charge of thefamily larder. For collecting, preparing, cookingand serving food, basketry is still most importantto the Indian. To gather the nuts under thepinon trees in the Rocky Mountain region, shefashions a spoon-shaped wicker scoop, whose bowlis also a coarse sieve through which the dirt isshaken. Huge storage baskets, representing tensof thousands of stitches, are often as tall as a man,as symmetrical as a Greek vase, and they arelaboriously ornamented with symbolic designswhich convey whole volumes of meaning to mem-bers of the tribe. The White Mountain Apaches,among others, make some wonderful householdgranaries. Into these great baskets the Indianhousekeeper pours the nuts, acorns, fruit, maize, V VSS&
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i4 < %* ■: ~ a! ? so 9 J ^ - y. ■-. WHAT THE BASKET MEANS TO THE INDIAN 187 and other grains on her return from natures mar-ket in the woods and fields. Every Indian woman is her own miller. Goingto a favorite rock, hollowed on its upper surface bymuch grinding, she places upon it a bowl-shapedbut bottomless basket to confine the portion ofgrain being ground, as well as to prevent the windfrom blowing away her meal. Through the holein the bottom of the basket she works her stonepestle diligently until all the grain is ground fine.Even a prosaic basket like this one does not lackits appropriate, poetic symbols. A wicker win-nower, to separate the grain from the chaff, isusually shaped like a large scallop shell, suggestingits probable derivation before the Indians weredriven backward from the coast into the interior.A basket through which to sift the finer flour is anecessary utensil in every well-regulated Indianhousehold. Today Chinese merchants still sifttea through basket tr

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