Featured Unusual Tohono O'odham basket

Hello again. I found this basket today, and am most intrigued by what I think is an unusual base where the basket was started. I've never seen a base like this (though I am certainly no expert) and I'm not seeing any others like it online or in my books.

Does anyone have info on an Arizona basket started like this one? Thanks!



Inside bottom:



Bottom, bottom:

 

appears to be some type of palm fibre....not American.

 

I thought about that.... I have say though, in hand it looks very much like other Tohono O'odham baskets I have.

 

Andrew Whiteford, in his Southwestern Indian Baskets, notes that "the starts of Pima and Papago coiled baskets were the most varied and complex of any in the Southwest". He cites J. F. Breazeale (The Pima and His Basket, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, 1923), who described, among other starts, "a center as large as three inches square...woven in checkerboard style before the regular coil weaving is begun".

 

Wow. Thank you for this identification! I've just been reading the cited text from 1923... very interesting. It's dated in tone but super informative, and what he says sounds very much like other, more contemporary, descriptions I've read. Thank you @2manybooks for finding it!