Basketry from the Rio Grande Classics

What would be the civilized man of to-day without the art of weaving the soft art that surrounds his home with comforts and his life with luxuries? Nay he deems them necessities. Could he do without his woven woollen or cotton underwear, his woven socks, his woven clothing? Where would be his bed linen and blankets, his carpets, his curtains, his portieres? His every day life is so intimately associated with weaving that he has ceased to think about it, and yet it is all owing to the work of primitive, aboriginal woman that he is thus favored. For there is not a weave of any kind, no matter how intricate or involved, that the finest looms of England or America produce to-day under the direction of the highest mechanical genius, that was not handed down to us, not in crude form, but as perfect as we now find it, by the first basket makers and kindred weavers.

Interest in the arts and industries of our Indian tribes has grown so rapidly in recent years, that whereas, 50 years ago, illustrative collections of the products of these arts and industries were confined to the museums of scientific societies, to-day they are to be found in scores of private collections. This popular interest has created a demand for knowledge as to the peonples whose arts these collections illustrate, and of the customs, social, tribal, medicinal, religious, in which the products of their arts are used.

One of the most common and useful of the domestic arts of the American Indian is that of basketry. It is primitive in the extreme, is universal, both as to time and location, and as far as we know has changed comparatively little since the days of its introduction. It touches the Indian at all points of his life from the cradle to the grace, and its products are used in every function, domestic, social and religious, of his civilization.

Hence, as Indian baskets are woven by human beings, akin to ourselves, and are used by them in a variety of relations of intensely human interest, we are studying humanity under its earliest and simplest phases, such phases as were probably manifested in our own ancestral history when we intelligently study Indian Basketry.

The earliest vessels used by mankind undoubtedly were shells, broken gourds or other natural receptacles that presented themselves opportunely to the needs of the aborigine. As his intelligence grew and he moved from place to place, the gourd as a receptacle for water when he crossed the hot and desert regions became a necessary companion. But accidents doubtless would happen to the fragile vessel and then the suggestion of strengthening it by means of fiber nets arose and the first step towards basket-making was taken. It is easy to conceive how the breakage of a gourd thus surrounded by a rude sustaining or carrying net led to the independent use of the net after the removal of the broken pieces, and thus nets ultimately would be made for carrying purposes without reference to any other vehicle. Weaving once begun, no matter how rough or crude, improvement was bound to follow, and hence, the origin of the basket.

In Indian basketry we may look and find instruction as to the higher development of our primitive people. There is no question that baskets preceded pottery-making and the close and fine weaving of textures, so the ethnologist finds in the progressive steps of their manufacture a preparatory training for pottery, weaving and other primitive arts. Basket-making was a common industry with all the Indians of the American Continent. In the North, baskets were, and still are, made, and we know of their manufacture by the Indians of Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana. Baskets have also been found among the remains of the Mound Builders. In the ruins of Southern Colorado and that interesting region of Arizona and New Mexico, some of the prehistoric graves contain so many baskets as to give their occupants the name of The Basket Makers."

"The birds and beasts are basket-makers, and some fishes construct for themselves little retreats where they may hide. Long before the fire-maker, the potter, or even the cook, came the mothers of the Fates, spinning threads, drawing them out and cutting them off. Coarse basketry or matting is found charred in very ancient sepulchers. With few exceptions women, the wide world over, are the basket-makers, netters and weavers."-Otis T. Mason. Of the antiquity of baskets there can be little doubt. Col. James Jackson, U. S. A., says: "Pottery making and basket weaving are as old as the human race. As far back as there are any relics of humanity are found the traces of these industries, supplying no doubt a very positive human need. From the graves of the mound builders, from Etruscan tombs-far beyond the dawn of Roman power-from the ruins of Cyclopean construction, Chaldean antiquities and from Egyptian catacombs come the evidences of their manufacture. Aboriginal occupation of the American continents seems to be as old, if not older, than that of either Europe or Asia, and when we look upon the baskets and pottery gathered here we behold the results of an industry that originated in the very dawn of human existence and has been continued with but little change down to the present time. Our world basket has itself changed but little from its original, the Welsh basgawd" meaning literally a weaving or putting together of splinters. The ancient Welsh, or Britons, were expert basket makers, and Roman annals tell us that the halls of wealthy Roman citizens were decorated with the beautiful and costly produce of their handiwork. Made from whatever substances were most appropriate or convenient they have been shaped by the needs and decorated by the fancy or superstitions of barbaric or semi-civilized peoples, and have served all purposes from plates to dwelling houses."

"Among primitive arts, basketry also furnishes the most striking illustration of the inventive genius, fertility of resource and almost incredible patience of the Indian woman. They collected the fuel, gathered the stores of acorns, mesquite and other wild seeds; they dried the grasshoppers for winter use.