Basketmaking
Basketmaking is a dynamic craft with ancient roots. More than one basketmaker has proclaimed that baskets trace their origin back to Moses in the bullrushes, and, indeed, woven baskets of various fibers are an essential cross-cultural craft known in practically every civilization from antiquity to the modern day. The craft has retained a position in the constellation of cultural traditions in communities and families through lean times and good in every part of the South. Basketmaking is well-embedded in the distinct yet related traditions of southerners of Native American, European, African, Caribbean, and Asian descent.
There are three major traditions of southern basketmaking: Native American, Afro-American, and Anglo-American. Of these, the black basketmakers in the Georgia and South Carolina Sea Islands have long been admired for the beauty and quality of their coiled grass baskets, whereas less attention by scholars or the public has been paid to Native American baskets (arguably the most intricate and finely made by any civilization) and to those in the white traditions. Even less attention had been paid to Asian basketmaking traditions in the South.
The various culturally determined forms, materials, and modes of construction (essentially a process of weaving, plaiting or coiling) indicate a rich exchange between peoples over the generations, but distinctive characteristics remain within each group. Indian peoples favor split reed, willow, and grasses, as do black craftsmen, but incorporate colorings and special designs in the woven container. Certain baskets made by black makers are not known among Indians or whites and may echo West African or Caribbean traditions. Anglo-Americans have always favored straight grained hardwood stock for baskets, chiefly white oak and hickory. Pure function and physical rigidity mark the work of culturally conservative white craftspeople, while playful ornamentation in color scheme often highlights the work of Indian and black American builders. White-oak basketmaking of the Anglo southerners is similar from the Virginia Piedmont across the mountains into Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, while the work of Native Americans differs from the coastal areas of the South to the western edge of the region (where some of the tribes lived separately for countless centuries).
The purpose to which baskets are put are as numerous as the chores of daily life. Baskets take whatever shape is necessary for their function. All are artifacts of measure, transport, store, and sort everything from eggs and seeds to babies and firewood. Southern baskets are created from every kind of useful plant and wood: from cornshucks, straw, grasses, branches, stalks, cane, bark, vines, pine needles, hickory, ash, willow, and oak.
Among the regional types are cotton baskets made and used by both black and white people in southern agriculture, fish traps for mountain streams, Choctaw corn sieves, and Sea Island Afro-American flower baskets. Some basket types-such as the Choctaw basket of split dyed cane, black South Carolina coiled grass basket, and white riven and ribbed oak egg basket require great labor and intricate skill. Others are easily made from gatherings of vines, grasses, or branches.
Craft revivals have played an important role in southern basketmaking. Movements of the 1920s and 1930s were fostered by various foundations, craft guilds, and New Deal agencies that sought to document and interpret southern life and work. From the 1960s to the present, basketmaking has been nourished by the folklife studies movement, folksong revivals, back-to the-land enthusiasts, the Roots phenomenon, tourism, Foxfire-like projects, and a return to the craft by older artists in retirement.
The interest in country things and "primitive" artifacts at rural auctions and art galleries reflects the growth of outside markets for traditional baskets that, in spite of philosophical misgivings of some scholars, has encouraged the continuation and occasional rebirth of authentic basketry. Adult craft classes and recreational programs also foster basketmaking in the modern South, allowing one to learn to produce a basket under proper tutelage.
Modern machines cannot produce a satisfactory "traditional" basket. Despite 19th-century attempts, the failure of technology to create good, inexpensive baskets in factory settings helped generate demand for the developments of other cheaper containers, from paper sacks to plastic bags and glass jars. The dominations of cheap sacks and bags has encouraged the decline of basketmaking, a craft that flourished when baskets were genuinely needed in society and that still can flourish among a small group of knowledge workers.
The process of craftsmanship is a fluid, dynamic one of constant if unnoticed inspiration, innovation, and alteration as builders encounter inviting technologies, new outlets, and new ideas in aesthetics, design, decoration, and function. If the basket made by Earl Westfall in Howard County, Mo., in 1969 holds magazines in a parlor rather than kindling by the hearth, the artifact remains a vivid and stable testament to a rich legacy, and it remains a traditional basket no matter what its present function. While one may mourn the loss of the old-timers, theirs is a craft of life, not death, and baskets will continue to be produced in response to the vicissitudes of cultural expression.
Basketmaking is well suited to the workshop or spare room and is a convenient way to supplement income from other jobs. Other factors, however, such as the difficulty in obtaining suitable wood or fiber or even high-quality tools, have inhibited the growth of the craft in some areas. Without a proper market outlet or the patrimony of the museum, there would be little incentive to retain the old skills so laboriously learned and manifested in basketmaking, nor would conservative, unassertive craftspeople come to the attention of researchers, collectors, nontraditional imitators, and businessmen. Some, like the late Jim Nicholson of northern Virginia (coming from a long line of basketmakers), continued making white oak baskets and selling them from the hood of his car on the highway shoulder.
Basketmaking has always been central to the life of all economic classes and groups of people in the South. Baskets today are considered are or handsome functional artifacts. Some basketmakers continue production in traditional contexts for traditional purposes. Although there are few "traditional" makers at work today, the craft continues, ever changing but still a characteristic feature of the cultural landscape of the South.
Howard W. Marshall
Missouri Cultural Heritage Center
University of Missouri at Columbia
From ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, edited by William Ferris and Charles Reagan Wilson. Copyright 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
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