Twined basket. Adiantum fern stem design material. Tag: "NW Cal". Per Ralph Shanks: Twined woman's basket hat. Crossed warp starting knot, indented. The warp material is probably willow. The weft material is conifer root. The weft overlay design has a beargrass background with maidenhair fern designs. Starting at the starting knot, there is three strand twining for 1 inch, followed by 1 inch of plain twining, followed by one weft row of three strand twining. Plain twining continues to the rim where there is one weft row of three strand twining 1/2 inch below the rim. The rim is trimmed. The main design is three sets of diagonals with a zigzag on the interior and diagonally stacked maidenhair fern triangles on either side. The basket has a rightward work direction, with an up to the right slant of weft twist. The workface is on the exterior. The overlay is single-sided, with the design on the exterior. The basket is from Northwest California. The black designs on a beargrass background are consistent with Yurok weaving, but not exclusive to that area.
Donor:
Kathleen Morehouse
Collection place:
Crescent City, Del Norte County, California
Verbatim coll. place:
California; Del Norte; Crescent City
Culture or time period:
Northwestern California tribes
Collector:
Emma Lang Morehouse and Herbert Harrison Morehouse
Collection date:
1904
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Basketry (object genre), Caps (headgear), and Twined weaving
Function:
2.4 Fine Clothes and Accoutrements not used exclusively for status or religious purposes