The Basket Makers

The Pimas, who also call themselves Akimel O'odham, "the river people," are believed to be descendants of the Hohokam. Taking a section of cattail stalk, Francisco formed a small tight coil. She then began to wrap the cattail with strips from a willow shoot. Using an awl, she pushed a strip of willow between the coils, then tugged it through and looped it under the coil, and repeated the process much like wrapping string around a stick. In ancient times, awls were made of bone or flint.

Gradually, she increased the coil, wrapped it in willow as she progressed, until a basket began to form. These cream, black and red willow bands that formed the design came from willow branches that I watched Francisco cut three months earlier on the Salt River below Stewart Mountain Dam northeast of Phoenix.

I have followed Francisco's creation of this basket from the beginning-choosing the design, gathering and preparing the willows, cattails, devil's claws and roots of ratany, a low-growing shrub. Francisco's miniature baskets, sometimes less than 4 inches in diameter, are prized not only for their beauty and workmanship but also for the traditional way they are made.

As she gathers the natural materials, Francisco uses methods handed down by her ancestors to complete each step in its time, in its season. In her baskets, the past and present blend in smooth succession as she applies lessons passed from mother to daughter, generation after generation.

The tradition of basketmaking runs strong in Francisco's family. Both of her great-grandmothers and her grandmother Vivian Francisco, as well as her mother, Julia, made beautiful baskets.

Francisco says, "When I was born, my grandmother delivered me, and I feel that when her hands touched me, she somehow passed her basketmaking skills on to me." When Francisco was 24 years old, she learned to make baskets from Julia and has spent years refining her talent.

Today, Pima baskets are valuable works of art, displayed in museums and favored by collectors. But a hundred years ago, they served practical needs. They were used to gather saguaro fruit and cholla buds and for winnowing wheat. Few of the old baskets remain.

When we first met, I asked Francisco where she found the motifs she carefully weaves into her baskets. "I study old photos or look at the baskets in museums anddesigns on Hohokam pots," she answered. "Sometimes I find a design on a piece of pottery, and I figure out how to incorporate that in my weaving."

To show me what she meant, she took me to Snaketown, a large Hohokam site a couple of miles from her home. There, thousands of pottery shards littered the ground. The village was abandoned around A.D. 1450, but the pottery colors are still bright after centuries of exposure to the elements.

We spent the afternoon wandering the mounds and arroyos of the ancient site, looking at the shards as a stiff wind blew tiny dust storms around our legs. Francisco smiled when she spotted a piece of white pottery with a red circular design.

"That one is the whirlwind design," she explained. "I use that design often because it is my traditional Indian name ["Whirlwind"]. My mother said she called me that because I could not sit still. I was always moving about like a little whirlwind."

Francisco then took me to see the historical baskets at the Gila River Arts and Crafts Center. Many of them feature a squash blossom design in the center, a favorite theme among Pima basket makers. We also visited the Hu Hu Kam Memorial Hospital at Sacaton, where more baskets-some of them Francisco's and her mother's - were displayed.

In addition to using ancient designs and techniques, the gathering of materials in the traditional way plays a key part in the creation of Francisco's baskets. The spring flowers were in bloom in April when I went with her to the Salt River to cut willows. Turkey vultures with outspread wings lazily rode the wind currents above us.

Francisco took her time. Sunset had started to cast light on the tops of the craggy cliffs before she located a clump of willows that met her requirements. There, with only the soft sounds of the gently flowing river and a few birdcalls to interrupt the silence, I watched as she murmured her thanks in the Pima language.

She chose only the youngest new shoots because the branches must remain pliable. Watching as she carefully cut the willows to avoid mutilating the plant, I was struck by the ageless scene. Francisco's ancestors must have performed this ritual a thousand years ago, when they gathered willows for their own baskets.

Before we left, Francisco stepped out on the cobblestones of the riverbank. From a buckskin bag decorated with red and yellow beads, she took a seed offering and scattered it on the current. As if on a cue, five herons flew past only a few yards away, barely skimming the water. I held my breath, afraid my presence might spoil the moment and Francisco's close feelings for the Earth.

Near sunset on another April night, I followed Francisco into the Sacaton Mountains to gather the dark roots of a ratany plant. She would use these roots to dye the light-colored willow branches a deep reddish brown.

This time, Francisco turned to face the sunset as she sang a traditional song. A slight breeze ruffled her long black hair as she stood silhouetted against the fiery sky. Shebent to place the seed offering around the plant before digging the roots and, after she was finished, carefully smoothed away all signs of displaced soil. The wind and rain would erase any evidence the earth was ever disturbed.

Back home, Francisco built a fire in an outdoor adobe fireplace and placed the ratany roots into a large pot of water on a rack above the orange flames. She shoved a chunk of mesquite wood into the fire, and sparks scattered like a miniature fireworks display. When the ratany and water boiled, she pushed the dry willow strips in and let them boil for several hours until they reached just the right shade of red.

While the willow soaked and absorbed the color, we sat by the warm fire and smelled the aroma of burning mesquite. The scene was pleasant and relaxing, but Francisco seemed worried. She wondered if the oldtraditions would someday fade away. To help keep the skills alive, Francisco teaches basketmaking to tribal members, but she warns them, "It is not something that you can pick up easily. Along with a natural abil-ity, you must be willing to put in the years of practice, have the patience to learn and the artistic eye to see design."

Francisco's love of her culture is obvious. She told me about going into the mountains with a photographer to shoot some of her baskets next to ancient petroglyphs. As they prepared to take the pictures, Francisco glanced farther up the mountain and spotted a large rock covered with petroglyphs of people, animals and geometric designs. Alone, she climbed up to the petroglyphs, spent time meditating and then brought her baskets and the photographer up. In front of the petroglyph-covered rock lay a large flat stone, almost like a table that had been placed there to hold her baskets.

As we sat by the fire, Francisco brought out the devil's claws she had already gathered. The large black seedpods with long curled "claws" loosely connected to form a black ball about 18 inches in diameter. She pulled thin strips from the plants. Later, she would soak them in water, making them more pliable, before using them to form the black part of the design in her basket.

In late May, Francisco sent me word the cattails were ready to cut. I met her just after dawn at a pond not far from the Gila River. We were alone except for a blue heron with a broken leg and a few red-winged blackbirds. The cattails had grown tall, but their tops were a golden brown, not yet fully mature. They swayed in the gentle wind.

Francisco asked for a few moments alone to gather her thoughts, so I remained by the pond while she wandered off. As the sun came up, birds chirped and sang. A large frog jumped in the pond, startling me and sending ripples radiating in widening circles.

Francisco came back. Composed and serene, she was ready. With her grandfather's sickle, a crescent-shaped blade on a handmade wooden handle, she swiftly cut off whole cattails. Since she needed only the stems, she used a sharp knife with a 10-inch blade to strip off the leaves, leaving woody stalks about 4 feet long. Later, she would split the stalks in half and put them on a drying rack for about four days until the shafts turned light brown and curled slightly. These would form the framework of her basket.

Francisco continued working on her basket under the shade house. Her mother, Julia, concentrated on her flat basket with a complicated Man-in-the-Maze pattern. Willow strips soaked in buckets of water beside each woman. Julia picked up cream-colored willow strips and ran a sharp knife along the edges to smooth them. Next she pulled each strand through a hole in a metal lid to make them all the same size. Before metal lids were available, the willows weren't sized as closely, and the weaving was more uneven.

The lines must be straight, the designs even. Francisco explained that the finer the willow wrap or stitches, the better the qualtity. Baskets like Francisco's that use three different colors are even more valuable.

More weeks of tedious work would be needed to finish the basket. Francisco makes them in all sizes, but one of her specialties is miniatures, and the one I observed her make was just 4 inches in diameter.

I asked her what will become of this basket. "I'll sell it," she said. "It is how I support myself. Sometimes people contact me to order a basket. Other times I take my work to Santa Fe where collectors purchase baskets."

I hoped the new owner of the basket would appreciate the time and effort involved-not just the months of preparation and weaving, but the centuries of traditions passed through the generations. This legacy is on the verge of dying out, but there are a few women left who sit under shade houses, as Francisco and Julia do, quietly making beautiful baskets in the way of the ancient Hohokam.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For information on Rikki Francisco's baskets, contact her at P.O. Box 812, Sacaton, AZ 85247.

Janet Webb Farnsworth of Snowflake was awed by the time and cultural rituals involved in each step of traditional basketmaking. She also wrote the Back Road Adventure and Destination in this issue.

Star Valley resident Bernadette Heath is happy to know that there is some purpose for devil's claws other than grabbing her socks or wrapping around her bike's tires.

NAVAJO RUGS For Weavers, Their Artistry is About Life and Family

Most Navajo Indian rugs come to life in places where the outside world seems a million miles away, and commerce even farther than that. Follow a weaving back to its maker and you're likely to see a cluster of hogans, maybe a corral, a pickup truck and a reservation hound chasing sheep across a giant landscape. It's good breathing country, for sure, and in the clear morning air you can smell the coffee brewing from up on top of the mesa. But business? Out here? Yes. Amid this seeming emptiness exists a powerful creative energy that has kept Navajo weaving alive and thriving through the decades. "We're in the midst of a good market now," says Bill Malone, manager of Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado. "We're selling all kinds of rugs - Burntwaters, Ganados and Wide Ruins.