Basket Item Number: E 1910.24 from the MAA: University of Cambridge

Description

Large rectangular burden basket made from tightly coiled cedar or spruce root with imbricated vertical lines made of cherry bark and a lighter bark.; Good

Context

Although the catalogue card gives a provenance of Kwakiutl the style of basket, design and structure, is much more like those made by the Interior Salish, for example a basket illustrated in Andrea Laforet' s article in Basketmakers, Meaning and Form in Native American Baskets, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1992, page 41, fig.37. It is possible the baskets were acquired by the Kwakiutl in trade from the Interior Salish (G.Crowther). The original European tribal names and, where possible, current tribal names have both been given in separate GLT fields.; The basket has several holes near the upper edges on the sides, possibly for a carrying strap. The basket would have been used for collecting berries and other produce from the forests.