Featured Basket Acquisition

I am pretty sure about the identification, but thought you all might be interested. Found on ebay, identified as generic "tribal basket".

An early (c.1900-1925) Tohono O'odham (Papago) basket bowl. Coiled, with willow and devil's claw stitches, and the distinctive checkered knot at the center start. The weaver worked facing the interior surface, creating more even stitches there than on the outer surface. Very stiff, tight, sturdy.




Here is a very similar one in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, documented as being acquired by the museum in 1927 -

https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_167751

I have read that water tight baskets were used to serve a traditional wine made from saguaro - "Deep bowl baskets woven to be water tight were used for holding nawait (saguaro wine) during the Wi:gita ceremony, a social religious gathering in the late summer to bring the rain or “to pull down the clouds” for the coming year. (MacMillan Booth 2005:377-379)" (quote from a thesis by Gina Marie Watkinson: Tohono O'odham Basketry: An Enduring Tradition) -
https://repository.arizona.edu/bits...d=B5C75BE974BD296C79A28D93B9E3D871?sequence=1

I would like to think that the residues visible in the basket are evidence of such use.

A children's version of "The Legend of the Saguaro" includes this wonderful illustration of a rather drunken cricket, indicating that individual basket bowls were used to serve the wine -

http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Saguaro-Story-English.pdf

I think I may call it my booze basket.

 

Beautiful. Just imagine the places that's been and the things that's seen.

Debora

 

very nice !!

 

The Saguaro fruit harvest is a tradition continued on by generations of Tohono O'odham.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=294947890314866

 

I love your booze basket. The design and the signs of use (booze or otherwise) are fantastic. It's so nice to come across an unidentified gem and I'm glad you got it!

 

Thanks for this!