Native American Basket Weaving | History, Techniques & Materials – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Video Transcript

Where it Began

The oldest examples of Native American basket weaving have been found in the American Southwest. The dry climate of the Southwest helped preserve these baskets believed to be around 8,000 years old.

Baskets were an important part of Native American life. Each basket was created for a specific purpose. They were used for food purposes, in the gathering, storing, rinsing, and preparing processes.

Baskets were also used for storage of non-food items. Some baskets were very sturdy and used to carry large loads. Some baskets were woven out of very flexible materials so they could be folded up, while others were lined with pitch to make them watertight.

During the late 1800s, Native American baskets became popular with non-Native people, and the craft became a source of income. Basket weavers hold as high a status today as they did centuries ago. This has guaranteed that the basket weaver’s art will not die.

Materials

The materials used for basket weaving vary from tribe to tribe depending on the basket’s use and the resources available. Materials gathered during the summer can be made into baskets during the winter months. Cedar bark, spruce roots, and different types of grasses are common basket weaving materials.

The material is gathered, processed, and dried. If the materials are prepared and stored correctly, they can be kept for a number of years. Sometimes, during the process of preparing these materials for weaving, natural dyes are used to add color. When the weaver is ready to make the basket, the material is kept wet, which makes it more pliable.

The Native Americans of the Northeast use sweet grass or ash splints for baskets, while tribes of the Southeast use bundled pine needles or rivercane. Northwestern tribes use cedar bark, spruce roots, and swamp grass. Tribes of the Southwest use sumac or willow wood.

As a nomadic people, there are few examples of baskets from the Plains Indians. They typically used animal skins for their containers, and since they did not make anything that would be difficult to pack up when they traveled, baskets were often unnecessary.

Basket Weaving Techniques

There are four basic techniques for weaving baskets: plaiting, wicker weaving, twining, and coiling. All weaving techniques except coiling use wefts and warps. The wefts are the horizontal pieces and the warps are the vertical pieces.

Weaving is an over and under method of combining the wefts and warps to each other. Many baskets have intricate designs woven into them. These designs might be unique to the individual basket maker.

Plaiting uses two pieces of weaving material and weaves them above and below each other at right angles. This kind of weaving is similar to the construction paper placemats many made in grade school. Usually, this type of weaving uses flat material such as cedar bark strips or any material that is wide and ribbon like. Different designs, such as a twill weave, can be made by varying the number of warps a weft piece would cross over or under.

Using reed, cane, or pieces of willow, sumac, or ash, wicker baskets have a foundation of warp ribs that the wefts weave over and under. The warp ribs can be the same material as the weft or made of fiber bundles. Wicker weaving is found primarily in the southwestern United States. Wicker baskets tend to be larger than other baskets and require special care to keep them usable.

Twining is a method of weaving that uses roots and narrow pieces of tree bark as weft to twist around the warps. Two wefts are twined around a single warp. The wefts cross each other between warps. A third weft of a different color could also be added to create designs. Many coastal tribes used this method to make fish nets, spacing out the twined rows. When the twined rows are closer together they make baskets.

Coil basketry, or coiling, uses grasses and rush plants bundled into a snake-like core, wrapped, and stitched with additional grasses. This type of basket is not woven but uses a sewing technique to connect the coils together. If the stitches are close together without any horizontal space, it is closed-coiling, while open-coiling leaves spaces between the coils. Sometimes the two techniques are combined to create varied patterns.

Lesson Summary

Native American basketry is both beautiful and functional, with each tribe creating baskets for its specific needs. Baskets are made with whatever resources are available. Those materials are gathered, processed, dried, and stored for future use.

Three types of basket weaving, plaiting, wicker, and twining, use interlacing wefts (horizontal pieces) and warps (vertical pieces). The coil basket method uses a sewing technique to join the basket coils. Though varied, these baskets gives us a glimpse into the daily life of Native Americans.