basketry

/bas"ki tree, bah"ski-/, n.

1. baskets collectively; basketwork.

2. the art or process of making baskets.

[1850-55; BASKET + -RY]

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Art and craft of making containers and other objects from interwoven flexible fibres such as grasses, twigs, bamboo, and rushes.

It is primarily a functional rather than a decorative art. The type of basketry in a given geographic region is determined by the type of vegetation available there. Numerous Asian, African, Oceanic, and Native American cultures have excelled in basketry.

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Introduction

      art and craft of making interwoven objects, usually containers, from flexible vegetable fibres, such as twigs, grasses, osiers, bamboo, and rushes, or from plastic or other synthetic materials. The containers made by this method are called baskets.

      The Babylonian god Marduk “plaited a wicker hurdle on the surface of the waters. He created dust and spread it on the hurdle.” Thus ancient Mesopotamian myth describes the creation of the earth using a reed mat. Many other creation myths place basketry among the first of the arts given to humans. The Dogon of West Africa tell how their first ancestor received a square-bottomed basket with a round mouth like those still used there in the 20th century. This basket, upended, served him as a model on which to erect a world system with a circular base representing the sun and a square terrace representing the sky.

      Like the decorative motifs of any other art form, the geometric, stylized shapes may represent natural or supernatural objects, such as the snakes and pigeon eyes of Borneo, and the kachina (deified ancestral spirit), clouds, and rainbows of the Hopi Indians of Arizona. The fact that these motifs are given a name, however, does not always mean that they have symbolic significance or express religious ideas.

      Sometimes symbolism is associated with the basket itself. Among the Guayaki Indians of eastern Paraguay, for example, it is identified with the female. The men are hunters, the women are bearers as they wander through the forest; when a woman dies, her last burden basket is ritually burned and thus dies with her.

      Though it would appear that basketry might best be defined as the art or craft of making baskets, the fact is that the name is one of those the limits of which seem increasingly imprecise the more one tries to grasp it. The category basket may include receptacles made of interwoven, rather rigid material, but it may also include pliant sacks made of a mesh indistinguishable from netting—or garments or pieces of furniture made of the same materials and using the same processes as classical basketmaking. In fact, neither function nor appearance nor material nor mode of construction are of themselves sufficient to delimit the field of what common sense nevertheless recognizes as basketry.

      In this discussion the word is taken to mean a handmade assemblage of vegetable fibres that is relatively large and rigid, so as to make a continuous surface, usually (but not exclusively) a receptacle. The consistency of the materials used distinguishes basketry, which is handmade, from weaving, in which the flexibility of the threads requires the use of an apparatus to put tension on the warp, the lengthwise threads. What basketry has in common with weaving is that both are means of assembling separate fibres by twisting them together in various ways.

Materials and techniques

      There is no region in the world, except in the northernmost and southernmost parts, where people do not have at their disposal materials—such as twigs, roots, canes, and grasses—that lend themselves to the construction of baskets. The variety and quality of materials available in a particular region bears on the relative importance of basketry in a culture and on the types of basketry produced by the culture. Rainy, tropical zones, for example, have palms and large leaves that require plaiting techniques different from those required for the grass stalks that predominate in the dry, subtropical savanna regions or for the roots and stalks found in cold temperate zones. The interrelationship between materials and methods of construction might in part explain why the principal types of basketry are distributed in large areas that perhaps correspond to climatic zones as much as to cultural groups: the predominance of sewed coiling, for example, in the African savannas and in the arid zones of southern Eurasia and of North America; of spiral coiling and twining in temperate regions; and of various forms of plaiting in hot regions. There is also a connection between the materials used and the function of the basket, which determines whether rigid or soft materials—either as found in nature or specially prepared—are used. In East Asia, for example, twined basketry fashioned out of thin, narrow strips (called laths) of bamboo is effective for such objects as cages and fish traps that require solid partitions with openings at regular intervals. Soft and rigid fibres are often used together: the rigid fibres provide the shape of the object and soft ones act as a binder to hold the shape.

      Finally, materials are chosen with a view toward achieving certain aesthetic goals; conversely, these aesthetic goals are limited by the materials available to the basket maker. The effects most commonly sought in a finished product are delicacy and regularity of the threads; a smooth, glossy surface or a dull, rough surface; and colour, whether natural or dyed. Striking effects can be achieved from the contrast between threads that are light and dark, broad and narrow, dull and shiny—contrasts that complement either the regularity or the decorative motifs obtained by the intricate work of plaiting.

 Despite an appearance of almost infinite variety, the techniques of basketry can be grouped into several general types according to how the elements making up the foundation (the standards, which are analogous to the warp of cloth) are arranged and how the moving element (the thread) holds the standards by intertwining among them (seefigure—>).

Coiled construction

      The distinctive feature of this type of basketry is its foundation, which is made up of a single element, or standard, that is wound in a continuous spiral around itself. The coils are kept in place by the thread, the work being done stitch by stitch and coil by coil. Variations within this type are defined by the method of sewing, as well as by the nature of the coil, which largely determines the type of stitch.

Spiral coiling

      The most common form is spiral coiling, in which the nature of the standard introduces two main subvariations: when it is solid, made up of a single whole stem, the thread must squeeze the two coils together binding each to the preceding one (giving a diagonal, or twilled, effect); with a double or triple standard the thread catches in each stitch one of the standards of the preceding coil. Many other variations of spiral coiling are possible. Distribution of this type of basketry construction extends in a band across northern Eurasia and into northwest North America; it is also found in the southern Pacific region (China and Melanesia) and, infrequently, in Africa (Rhodesia).

Sewed coiling

      Sewed coiling has a foundation of multiple elements—a bundle of fine fibres. Sewing is done with a needle or an awl, which binds each coil to the preceding one by piercing it through with the thread. The appearance varies according to whether the thread conceals the foundation or not (bee-skep variety) or goes through the centre of the corresponding stitch on the preceding coil (split stitch, or furcate). This sewed type of coiled ware has a very wide distribution: it is almost the exclusive form in many regions of North and West Africa; it existed in ancient Egypt and occurs today in Arabia and throughout the Mediterranean basin as far as western Europe; it also occurs in North America, in India, and sporadically in the Asiatic Pacific. A variety of sewed coiling, made from a long braid sewed in a spiral, has been found throughout North Africa since ancient Egyptian times.

Half-hitch and knotted coiling

      In half-hitch coiling, the thread forms half hitches (simple knots) holding the coils in place, the standard serving only as a support. There is a relationship between half-hitch coiling and the half-hitch net (without a foundation), the distribution of which is much more extensive. The half-hitch type of basketry appears to be limited to Australia, Tasmania, Tierra del Fuego in South America, and Pygmy territory in Africa. In knotted coiling, the thread forms knots around two successive rows of standards; many varieties can be noted in the Congo, in Indonesia, and among the Basket Makers, an ancient culture of the plateau area of southwestern United States, centred in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.

      The half-hitch and knotted-coiling types of basketry each have a single element variety in which there is no foundation, the thread forming a spiral by itself analogous to the movement of the foundation in the usual type. An openwork variety of the single element half hitch (called cycloid coiling) comes from the Malay area; and knotted single-element basketry, from Tierra del Fuego and New Guinea.

Noncoiled construction

      Compared to the coiled techniques, all other types of basketry have a certain unity of construction: the standards form a foundation that is set up when the work is begun and that predetermines the shape and dimensions of the finished article. Nevertheless, if one considers the part played by the standards and the threads, respectively, most noncoiled basketry can be divided into three main groups.

Wattle construction

 A single layer of rigid, passive, parallel standards is held together by flexible threads in one of three ways, each representing a different subtype. (1) The bound, or wrapped, type, which is not very elaborate, has a widespread distribution, being used for burden baskets in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, for poultry cages in different parts of Africa and the Near East, and for small crude baskets in Tierra del Fuego. (2) In the twined type, the threads are twisted in twos or threes, two or three strands twining around the standards and enclosing them. The twining may be close or openwork or may combine tight standards and spaced threads. Close twining mainly occurs in three zones: Central Africa, Australia, and western North America, where there are a number of variations such as twilled and braided twining and zigzag or honeycomb twining. The openwork subtype is found almost universally because it provides a perfect solution to the problem of maintaining rigid standards with even spacing for fish traps and hurdles (portable panels used for enclosing land or livestock). Using spaced threads, this subtype is also used for flexible basketry among the Ainu of northern Japan (arts, East Asian) and the Kuril Islands and sporadically throughout the northern Pacific. (3) The woven type (see photograph—>), sometimes termed wickerwork, is made of stiff standards interwoven with flexible threads. It is the type most commonly found in European and African basketry and is found sporadically in North and South America and in Near and Far Eastern Asia.

Lattice construction

      In lattice construction a frame made of two or three layers of passive standards is bound together by wrapping the intersections with a thread. The ways of intertwining hardly vary at all and the commonest is also the simplest: the threads are wrapped in a spiral around two layers of standards. This method is widely used throughout the world in making strong, fairly rigid objects for daily use: partitions for dwellings, baskets to be carried on the back, cages, and fish traps (with a Mediterranean variety composed of three layers of standards and a knotted thread). The same method, moreover, can be adapted for decorative purposes, with threads—often of different colours—to form a variety of motifs similar to embroidery. This kind of lattice construction appears mainly among the Makah Indians of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and in Central and East Africa.

Matting or plaited construction

 Standards and threads are indistinguishable in matting or plaited construction; they are either parallel and perpendicular to the edge (straight basketry) or oblique (diagonal basketry) (see photograph—>). Such basketry is closest to textile weaving. The materials used are almost always woven, using the whole gamut of weaving techniques (check, twill, satin, and innumerable decorative combinations). Depending on the material and on the technique used, this type of construction lends itself to a wide variety of forms, in particular to the finest tiny boxes and to the most artistic large plane surfaces. It is widely distributed but seems particularly well adapted to the natural resources and to the kind of life found in intertropical areas. The regions where it is most common are different from, and complementary with, those specializing in coiled and twined ware; that is, eastern and southeastern Asia (from Japan to Malaysia and Indonesia), tropical America, and the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa.

      One variety of matting or plaited work consists of three or four layers of elements, which are in some cases completely woven and in others form an intermediate stage between woven and lattice basketry. The intermediate type (with two layered elements, one woven) is known as hexagonal openwork and is the technique most common in openwork basketry using flat elements. It has a very wide distribution: from Europe to Japan, southern Asia, Central Africa, and the tropical Americas. A closely woven fabric in three layers, forming a six-pointed star design, is found on a small scale in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Decorative devices

      Clearly, a variety of decorative possibilities arise from the actual work of constructing basketry. These, combined with the possible contrasts of colour and texture, would seem to provide extensive decorative possibilities. Each particular type of basketry, however, imposes certain limitations, which may lead to convergent effects: hexagonal openwork, for example, forms the same pattern the world over, just as twilled weaving forms the same chevrons (vertical or horizontal). Each type, also, allows a certain range of freedom in the decoration within the basic restrictions imposed by the rigidity of the interlaced threads, which tends to impose geometric designs or at least to geometrize the motifs. In general, the two main types of basketry—plaited and coiled—lend themselves to two different kinds of decoration. Coiled basketry lends itself to radiating designs, generally star- or flower-shaped compositions or whirling designs sweeping from the centre to the outer edge. Plaited basketry, whether diagonal or straight, lends itself to over-all compositions of horizontal stripes and, in the detail, to intertwined shapes that result from the way two series of threads, usually in contrasting colours, appear alternately on the surface of the basket.

      Other art forms have been influenced ornamentally by basketry's plaited shapes and characteristic motifs. Because of their intrinsic decorative value—and not because the medium dictates it—these shapes and motifs have been reproduced in such materials as wood, metal, and clay. Some notable examples are the interlacing decorations carved on wood in the Central African Congo; basketry motifs engraved into metalwork and set off with inlayed silver by Frankish artisans in the Merovingian period (6th to 8th century); and osier patterns (molded basketwork designs) developed in 18th-century Europe to decorate porcelain.

Uses

      Household basketry objects consist primarily of receptacles for preparing and serving food and vary widely in dimension, shape, and watertightness. Baskets are used the world over for serving dry food, such as fruit and bread, and they are also used as plates and bowls. Sometimes—if made waterproof by a special coating or by particularly close plaiting—they are used as containers for liquids. Such receptacles are found in various parts of Europe and Africa (Chad, Rwanda, Ethiopia) and among several groups of North American Indians. By dropping hot stones into the liquid, the Hupa Indians of northwestern California even boil water or food in baskets.

      Openwork, which is permeable and can be made with mesh of various sizes, is used for such utensils as sieves, strainers, and filters. Such basketry objects are used in the most primitive cultures as well as in the most modern (the tea strainers used in Japan, for example). The flexibility of work done on the diagonal is put to particularly ingenious use by the Africans in beer making and, above all, by Amazonian Indians in extracting the toxic juices from manioc (cassava) pulp (a long basketwork cylinder is pulled down at the bottom by ballasting and, as it gets longer, compresses the pulp with which it had previously been filled).

      Finally, basketry plays an important part as storage containers. For personal possessions, there are baskets, boxes, and cases of all kinds—nested boxes from Madagascar, for example, which are made in a graduated series so that they fit snugly one within another, or caskets with multiple compartments from Indonesia. For provisions, there are baskets in various sizes that can be hung up out of the reach of predators, and there are baskets so large that they are used as granaries. In The Sudan in Africa, as in southern Europe, these are usually raised off the ground on a platform and sheltered by a large roof or stored in the house, particularly in Mediterranean regions; for preserving cereals they are sometimes caulked with clay.

      Some of these granaries are not far from being houses. Basketry used in house construction, however, usually consists of separately made elements that are later assembled; partitions of varying degrees of rigidity used as walls or to fence in an enclosure; roofs made of great basketry cones (in Chad, for example); and, above all, mats, which have numerous uses in the actual construction as well as in the equipping of a house. Probably the oldest evidence of basketry is the mud impressions of woven mats that covered the floors of houses in the Neolithic (c. 7000 BC) village of Jarmo in northern Iraq. Mats were used in ancient Egypt (art and architecture, Egyptian) to cover floors and walls and were also rolled up and unrolled in front of doorways, as is shown by stone replicas decorating the doorways of tombs dating from the Old Kingdom, c. 2686–2160 BC. It is known from paintings that they were made of palm leaves and were decorated with polychrome (multicoloured) stripes, much like the mats found in Africa and the Near East.

      Two notable examples of modern mats are the pliant ones, made of pandanus leaves, found in southern Asia and Oceania and the tatami, which provide the unit of measurement of the surface area of Japanese dwellings. Just as basketry has been used for making containers and mats, so from ancient times to modern it has been used for making such pieces of furniture as cradles, beds, tables, and various kinds of seats and cabinets.

      In addition to the use of basketry for skirts and loincloths (particularly common in Oceania), supple diagonal plaiting has even been used to make dresses (dress) (Madagascar). Plaited raincoats exist throughout eastern Asia as well as Portugal. Basketry most frequently is used for shoes (particularly sandals, some of which come close to covering the foot and are plaited in various materials), and, of course, for hats—the conical hat particularly common in eastern Asia, for example, and the skullcaps and brimmed hats found in Africa, the Americas, and much of Europe.

      To protect head and body against weapons, thick, strong basketry has been used in the form of helmets (helmet) (Africa, the Assam region in India, and Hawaii); armour (for example, armour of coconut palm fibre for protection against weapons made of sharks' teeth by the Micronesia inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands); and shields, for which basketry is eminently suitable because of its lightness. In addition to clothes themselves, there are numerous basketry accessories: small purses, combs, headdresses, necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. In West Africa there are even chains made of fine links and pendants plaited in a beautiful, bright yellow straw in imitation of gold jewelry. Many objects are plaited just for decoration or amusement such as ornaments like those used for Christmas trees or for harvest festivals and scale models and little animal or human figurines that sometimes serve as children's toys.

      There is often no very clear distinction between accessories and ritual ornaments (ceremonial object), as in the ephemeral headdresses made for initiation rites by the young Masa people in the Cameroon; dance accessories; ornaments for masks (mask), such as the leaf masks that the Bobo of Upper Volta make with materials from the bush.

      More clearly ritual in nature are the palms (woven into elaborate geometric shapes and liturgical symbols) carried in processions on Palm Sunday by Christians in various Mediterranean regions; some, like those from Elche in Spain, are over six feet (nearly two metres) high and take days to make. In Bali an infinite variety of plaiting techniques are involved in the preparation of ritual offerings, which is a permanent occupation for the women, a hundred of whom may work for a month or two preparing for certain great festivals.

      Baskets are used throughout the world as snares and fish traps, which allow the catch to enter but not to leave. They are often used in conjunction with a corral (on land) or a weir (an enclosure set in the water), which are themselves made either of pliable nets or panels of basketry. In Africa as well as in eastern Asia a basketry object is used for fishing in shallow water; open at top and bottom, this object is deposited sharply on the bottom of shallow rivers or ponds, and, when a fish is trapped, it is retrieved by putting a hand in through the opening at the top.

      Basketry is also used in harvesting foodstuffs; for example, in the form of winnowing trays (from whose French name, van, the French word for basketry, vannerie, is derived). One basket, found in the Sahel region south of the Sahara, is swung among wild grasses and in knocking against the stalks collects the grain.

      Baskets are used as transport receptacles; they are made easier to carry by the addition of handles or straps depending on whether the basket is carried by hand, on a yoke, or on the back. The two-handled palm-leaf basket, common in North Africa and the Middle East, existed in ancient Mesopotamia; in Europe and eastern Asia, the one-handled basket, which comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and types of plaiting, is common; in Africa, however, where burdens are generally carried on the head, there is no difference between baskets used for transporting goods and those used for storing.

      Burden baskets are large, deep baskets in which heavy loads can be carried on the back; they are provided either with a headband that goes across the forehead (especially American Indian, southern Asia), or with two straps that go over the shoulders (especially in Southeast Asia and Indonesia). There are three fairly spectacular types of small basketry craft found in regions as far apart as Peru, Ireland, and Mesopotamia: the balsa (boats) of Lake Titicaca, made of reeds and sometimes fitted out with a sail also made of matting; the British coracle, the basketry framework of which is covered with a skin sewn onto the edge; and the gufa of the Tigris, which is round like the coracle and made of plaited reeds caulked with bitumen.

Origins and centres of development

      Something about the prehistoric origins of basketry can be assumed from archaeological evidence. The evidence that does exist from Neolithic times onward has been preserved because of conditions of extreme dryness (Egypt, Peru, southern Spain) or extreme humidity (peat bogs in northern Europe, lake dwellings in Switzerland); because it had been buried in volcanic ash (Oregon); or because, like the mats at Jarmo, it left impressions in the mud or on a pottery base that had originally been molded onto a basketry foundation. More recently, when written and pictorial documentation is available, an activity as humble and banal as basketry is not systematically described but appears only by chance in narratives, inventories, or pictures in which basketry objects figure as accessories.

      On the evidence available, researchers have concluded that the salient characteristics of basketry are the same today as they were before the 3rd millennium BC. Then, as now, there was a wide variety of types (and a wide distribution of most types): coiled basketry either spiral or sewed, including furcate and sewed braid (mainly in Europe and the Near East as far as the Indus valley); wattlework with twined threads (America, Europe, Egypt) and with woven threads (Jarmo, Peru, Egypt); and plaited construction with twilled weaving (Palestine, Europe).

      To list the centres of production would almost be to list all human cultural groups. Some regions, however, stand out for the emphasis their inhabitants place on basketry or for the excellence of workmanship there.

American Indian (Native American art) basketry

      In western North America the art of basketry has attained one of its highest peaks of perfection and has occupied a preeminent place in the equipment of all the groups who practice it. North American Indians are particularly noted for their twined and coiled work. The Chilkat and the Tlingit of the Pacific Northwest are known for the extreme delicacy of their twined basketry; the California Indians, for the excellence of their work with both types; and the Apache and the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians of the southwestern interior of the United States, for coiled basketry remarkable for its bold decoration and delicate technique.

      Central and South American basketry is similar in materials and plaiting processes. The notable difference lies in the finishes used, and in this the Guyana Indians of northeastern South America excel, using a technique of fine plaiting with a twill pattern.

Oceanic (art and architecture, Oceanic) basketry

      Various plaiting processes have been highly developed in Oceania, not merely for making utilitarian articles but also for ceremonial items and items designed to enhance prestige, such as finely twined cloaks in New Zealand, statues in Polynesia, masks in New Guinea, and decorated shields in the Solomon Islands. In Oceania, as in southern Asia, there is a vegetal civilization, in which basketry predominates over such arts as metalwork and pottery. Particular mention should be made of the Senoi of the Malay Peninsula and of the Australian Aborigines (Australian Aborigine), whose meagre equipment includes delicate basketry done by the women. The Senoi use various plaiting techniques, and the Australians use tight twining.

African (art, African) basketry

      Africa presents an almost infinite variety of basket types and uses. In such regions as Chad and Cameroon, basketry is in evidence everywhere—edging the roads, roofing the houses, decorating the people, and providing the greater part of domestic equipment. The delicate twill plaited baskets of the Congo region are notable for their clever patterning. In the central and eastern Sudanese zone the rich decorative effect of the sewed, coiled baskets is derived from the interplay of colours. People living in the lake area of the Great Rift Valley produce elegant coiled and twined basketry of restrained decoration and careful finishing.

East Asian basketry

      People of the temperate zones of East Asia produce a variety of work. bamboo occupies a particularly important place both in functional basketry equipment and in aesthetic objects (Japanese (arts, East Asian) flower baskets, for example). The production of decorative objects is one feature that distinguishes East Asian basketry from the primarily utilitarian basketry of the Near East and Africa. Southeast Asia, together with Madagascar, are among the places known for their fine decorative plaiting techniques.

European basketry

      In Europe almost the whole range of basketry techniques is used, chiefly in making utilitarian objects (receptacles for domestic and carrying purposes and household furniture) but also in making objects primarily for decorative use.

Modern basketry

      Even in the modern industrial world, there seems to be a future for basketry. Because of its flexibility, lightness, permeability, and solidity, it will probably remain unsurpassed for some utilitarian ends; such articles, however, because they are entirely handmade, will gradually become luxury items. As a folk art, on the other hand, basketry needs no investment of money: the essential requirements remain a simple awl, nimble fingers, and patience.

Hélène J. Balfet

Additional Reading

H.H. Bobart, Basketwork Through the Ages (1936, reissued 1971); M.L. Lee, Basketry and Related Art (1948); G.M. Crowfoot, “Textiles, Basketry and Mats,” in A History of Technology, vol. 1 (1954); Geofrey H.S. Bushnell, “Basketry,” Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. 2, col. 387–400 (1960); H. Balfet, “La Vannerie, essai de classification,” L'Anthropologie (1952; Eng. trans. and preface by M.A. Baumhoff, “Basketry: A Proposed Classification,” in Papers on Californian Archaeology, no. 47–49, pp. 1–21, 1957), a detailed explanation of the classifications used in this article and the source of portions adapted for use here with permission of the Archaeological Survey, University of California, Berkeley; O.T. Mason, “Aboriginal American Basketry,” Annual Report, 1902 of the U.S. National Museum, pp. 171–548 (1904), a classic work on basketry; H. Munsterberg, The Folk Arts of Japan, ch. 3 (1958); Ed Rossbach, Baskets as Textile Art (1973), on the aesthetics of basket design; Gloria Roth Teleki, The Baskets of Rural America (1957), a history of the origins and techniques of basketry. See also Shereen LaPlantz, Pleated Basketry: The Woven Form (1982); John Rice Irwin, Baskets and Basket Makers in Southern Appalachia (1982).

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