ROADSIDE REST

Collecting Prized Pima Indian Baskets Is Fast Becoming a Missed Opportunity

By almost any measure, including financial, he would have been judged a success. For more than 40 years, he published splendid books. Then when old, he sold his business for $500,000, a comfortable retirement.

"Not that I dwell on regrets," he ruminated over dinner one evening, "but if as a young man I had gotten a job pumping gasoline at the corner service station, and every Friday faithfully invested $5 of my paycheck in a good Navajo saddle blanket, likely I'd have done just as well."

Maybe better.

When I myself was a halfgrown and half-civilized kid on the Gila River Indian Reservation south of Phoenix, often on autumn days I would knock on the door of the government residence of Bert Robinson, tribal superintendent. Although blind, Mr. Robinson had pursued a passion for Pima basketry. He had acquired his first one about 1915, and by the time I arrived in his life, his house at Sacaton was stuffed to the ceilings with baskets bearing designs of 12-petal squash blossoms, swastikas, frets, mazes, and whirlwinds. He would strum his sensitive fingertips across the texture of tightly stitched strands of cattail, willow, and devil's claw, and deliver a stern lecture: "Now, Donald, you must begin a collection of your own before this art dies out. There are now only a few hundred active basket makers. For a very few dollars you could acquire some miniatures such as these made of horsehair."

I did have a bit of money, making 50 cents an hour hoeing weeds and handling chores at the old Sacaton research station where scientists, including my father, refined strains of Arizona cotton. But as boys will, I put my poke into a $19 Stevens shotgun and enough 12-gauge shells to keep the barrel warm. What I sought from Mr. Robinson was his written permission to hunt quail. Not his advice on buying Indian baskets.

Today Mr. Robinson is gone, his magnificent assemblage of craft art dispersed, his book on Pima basketry itself a collector's item. My springer spaniel hunts retriever heaven, and my old shotgun strengthens a Toyota chassis. I feed instead of shoot quail. And I am not wealthy. If only I had heeded Mr. Robinson.

For it has come to pass that those big old woven bowls I might have had for $8 today fetch five and six figures at auctions. And price is not so much the problem. It's whether you can find a sizable top-grade Pima vessel, Hopi plaque, or Yavapai Apache storage urn for any amount of money.

My friend Bert Robinson who in later years miraculously regained his eyesight and could gaze upon his collection was wrong in one prediction: Native American arts did not altogether vanish. Along with silversmithing, tapestry, ceramics, carving, and painting, basketry gained some needed support both in material compensation and regard as an art form.

Currently, the Tohono O'odham (formerly called Papago) produce thousands of baskets annually. Some smaller items sell for $50 or less; not bad for a special gift. Apaches, Utes, Hopis, and Navajos add to the supply. There are even a few, very few, Pima weavers. It seems only yesterday when dozens of Pima matrons, dressed in colorful handmade dresses, spread their nests of baskets by the double dozen along the sidewalks of Washington Street in Phoenix and starved for buyers.

Miraculously, basketry persisted because Indian women cared enough to make them, even at 10 cents an hour. So it is that Hopis craft styles of corn sifters in continuous use for 1,500 years. Apaches still waterproof their twined canteens with a glaze of piñon pitch. Navajos sanctify weddings with a mouthful of gruel served in a woven ceremonial tray. Numerous other items, such as plaques, headdresses, mats, and religious implements, are woven in traditional ways.

In Flagstaff the gift shop at the Museum of Northern Arizona offers a one-stop array of most contemporary weaves. Phoenix's Heard Museum store enjoys a like reputation: assured quality, fair prices.

When I have the time, I prefer zipping down to the Gila River Indian Crafts Center and Heritage Park, only 26 miles south of Sky Harbor International Airport, and 88 miles north of Tucson on Interstate 10 at Exit 175. That's probably the most likely location to find a rare Pima basket for sale; at least, a few keepers are on display.

"I know of only three Pima women who are said to be weaving," says the longtime center manager, John Long. "We're lucky if we have for sale one classic Pima basket a year. Another almost lost art is Maricopa pottery. Our museum displays are representative, but we seldom have a Pima basket or Maricopa pot for sale."

Native peoples of good nature and rich humor staff the place, and chatting with them is half the reason for going.

In the cafe, I sip a cup of that strong Indian coffee and chew a chunk of that original fast junk food, Pima fry bread with honey, and remember hoeing weeds for 50 cents an hour and burning up my wages in shotgun shells. The notion nags me that if my dear mother had not been so skilled at stirring up a pan of fried quail and freckled brown gravy dotted with buttermilk dumplings, today I would be Arizona's richest man.