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Read Ebook: The Art and the Romance of Indian Basketry Clark Field Collection Philbrook Art Center Tulsa 1964 by Field Clark
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Ebook has 202 lines and 29587 words, and 5 pages
the art and the romance of indian basketry
clark field
clark field collection philbrook art center o tulsa o 1964
FOREWORD
The autobiographical information about Mr. Clark Field, which appears at the end of this brochure, briefly tells the inspiring story of well over four decades of dedication to--and sincere belief in--the American Indian as a creative artist. The results of these many years of collecting Indian baskets are on permanent display at Philbrook Art Center, in the Clark Field Collection; in addition, many other specimens are in storage and available to the scholar in the study collection. This brochure is not intended as a catalogue of all of the baskets in the Clark Field Collection, which includes more than a thousand specimens. Rather, it serves as an introduction to Indian basketry and tells the story of how baskets were made and used. About 90 of the more important baskets are illustrated, including the most famous American Indian basket, woven by Dotsolalee reproduced in color on the cover.
Mr. Field has combined his enthusiasm for the art of Indian basketry with a high degree of scientific scholarship. He has kept careful records, which will become increasingly valuable as old specimens become even more rare and this Indian skill gradually dies out in this modern world. His daughter, Dorothy Field Maxwell, has assisted Mr. and Mrs. Field in their collection and with the preparation of this brochure. Mrs. Jeanne Snodgrass, Curator of Indian Art at Philbrook, has also assisted with the brochure in an editorial capacity.
Mr. Field has performed an invaluable service to humanity in his long dedication to the preservation of this most important facet of the original Americans, and Philbrook Art Center will be, for countless generations, a mecca for those who wish to enjoy this fascinating utilitarian, yet esthetically meaningful art form.
BASKETRY
The need for food containers in early human communities led to the "invention" of basketry. The first baskets may have been made of animal skin or twigs; but soon evolved into the use of more suitable materials such as vegetable fibres. Because of the organic materials used in making baskets, most of the earliest examples have been lost through decay. A few examples have been preserved but only in areas of extremely dry climate, such as in Egypt, in Chile and Peru in South America, and in the southwestern United States. Radiocarbon tests of woven artifacts establish the existence and the use of baskets in Nevada, Utah and Oregon as early as 9000 to 700 B.C., and that Egyptians of the pre-dynastic period used baskets. Early literary sources, such as the Bible, mention baskets and other woven articles such as the "ark of bulrushes" in which the infant Moses was hidden ; baskets were used to bring the tithes to the temple, and Matthew talked of "twelve baskets full."
In the study of American Indian baskets there are three major factors to be considered: the first is the tribe which produced the basket; the second is the language, since inter-marriage among tribes produced varying cultures; the third factor is the weave of the basket itself. For example, the five major weaves used by American Indians are: Coil, Twine, Twill, Wicker and Imbricated. To the novice there is the obvious difference in shape, color and texture of a collection of Indian baskets viewed in a museum. To the collector there is the hint of the whole pattern of life of the Indians who produced the basket.
It is the Indian woman, not the man, who makes baskets . They are made either for utilitarian use or for ceremonial use. Basket designs are not taught to the craftsman nor are they copied from a pattern book. They are created by the individual weaver who is an artist of great ability. The artist-craftsman must first develop a manner of weaving that will form a shape adequate for the basket's final use. She must then find suitable materials in her area for this weaving project. This step completed, she mentally creates a decorative design and invents a method of weaving it into the basket.
It is known that all North American Indian tribes, at some time in their history, made and used baskets. However, the finest and most decorative baskets were made about the middle of the 19th century, in the Northwest, down the Pacific Coast states and into the Southwest through Arizona and New Mexico.
The influence of other culture groups upon the craft of basket weaving is so great that each year fewer baskets are produced by the regular weavers. The Indian women have learned that they can secure mass produced articles as a substitute for baskets. Only two percent of the types of baskets included in this collection are now being made. It is quite probable that by the year 2000 there will be NO Indian baskets being woven.
EARLY BASKETRY
Very few people are aware that baskets were made by the Ozark "Bluff Dwellers." A special exhibit in the University of Arkansas Museum, Fayetteville, contains a small basket filled with grasshoppers. The University Museum points out that as long ago as the year 1 A.D., baskets were being made by Indians in the Ozark Area. This provides further evidence of the Indian's early inhabitance of this country.
BASKETS WHICH ARE NO LONGER MADE--AND WHY
Case No. 5:
Case No. 7:
Case No. 9:
IDEAS COPIED FROM INDIAN BASKETS
The Anglo appropriated many Indian basket ideas for his own use:
BASKETS OF UNIQUE DESIGNS AND USES
The average weaver does not use more than five or six figures in a design.
THE VANISHING INDIAN?
The vanishing Indian? He is not vanishing! In 1890, the Indian population in North America numbered about one quarter million and in 1963, records reveal there are over one million Indians.
SYMBOLIC DESIGNS?
BASKETRY
Case No. 13:
Case No. 3:
In 1958 the U. S. Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., rated this basket as probably the finest specimen of basketry ever produced.
In 1914, G. A. Steiner, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, purchased the finest basket the artist had produced up to that time. It is forty-nine inches in circumference and has more than eighty thousand stitches. It was purchased for 50, and added to the Carnegie Library Collection in Pittsburgh .
Case No. 4:
This basket is made of ash splints and is white on the interior. The exterior is decorated with designs painted in native dyes using a swabbing stick which has been pounded at one end to form a brush.
Case No. 4:
Case No. 4:
Between dances the basket is used for storing the sacred ceremonial paraphernalia used in the dance. The "Keeper of the Sacred Basket" seldom ever parts with the basket. Therefore, not many can be found in public or private collections.
Case No. 3:
The custom of making and using these baskets no longer prevails. Few people today know the art, and even fewer people are willing to devote the nearly two years to make one feathered basket.
Case No. 4:
The "Jumping Dance Basket" receives its name from a ceremony in which the participants perform with jumping dance motions. This ceremony is a prayer of supplication for the return of the soil's fertility. It is held in the spring of the year on land that has ceased to bear crops.
Some people question these customs, and actually call them mere "Indian superstitions." It is revealing to note, however, that less than a century ago Anglos believed that the childhood disease, rickets, could be cured by splitting an ash tree at dawn, and passing the stricken child head-first through the opening in the tree.
This set of three baskets, handed down from generation to generation, was secured from a medicine man. The baskets were made prior to 1860 and no one living today seems to know how to weave them. As a result, the baskets are quite rare, and it is doubtful if another such set could be obtained.
Case No. 4:
Case No. 4:
The two small trays represent the badges, which are given to the newly initiated boy.
Case No. 4:
The Paiute basket is illustrated on Plate 19c.
Case No. 4:
This plaque is made of yucca. The green color is unbleached yucca, the white is bleached yucca and the black color is yucca which has been dyed by using black sunflower seeds.
Case No. 4:
This coiled basket is covered with the feathers of about two hundred quail. The feathers which protrude from the basket, are from the head of the Valley Quail, or Gambel's Quail. The dark blue feathers are taken from different quails. The decorative disk-like beads are fashioned in the following manner: the shells are broken into small pieces and then drilled with a pump drill. They are then strung on a cord and the strand is then rubbed on a wet sandstone until the beads are round and uniform in size.
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