The Art and the Romance of Indian Basketry / Clark Field Collection, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, 1964

ROOT RUNNER BASKETS IN VIRGINIA

The Rappahannock Indians of Virginia make a basket of Japanese honeysuckle root runners of a wicker type weave which is crude in weaving technique in comparison with baskets from North Carolina. (Rappahannock of Virginia.) Quoting Dr. Speck, “The art was revived by some of the women in 1922, when the Indian Association was formed. Susie and Lizzie Nelson, old Bob Nelson and other Rappahannock Indians made these baskets at that time. Chief Otto Nelson, his wife Susie, and Lizzie Nelson remember that when they were young about 1890, their grandmother Sallie Ronnie, who was then about 60 years old, had a honeysuckle sewing basket shaped like an oval bowl, similar in weave to the baskets mentioned above.

“There is a native local, variety of Red Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) in Virginia which is not a ground runner but clings for six feet or so to trees and fences; it is finer stemmed than the Japanese variety and Indian women of the Rappahannock tribe have agreed to weave with it. All honeysuckle runners are kept soaked in water to preserve their pliability for weaving. They can be gathered and woven at any time of the year if treated in this manner.”

As far as known no other fine root runner is used for basket weaving by the Indians of this state, although other fine root runners such as Devil’s Shoestring and London Pride grow there. Comments on honeysuckle wicker-weave baskets among the Mattaponi Indians of Virginia are made by Dr. Frank Speck in his book “At Mattaponi,” in which he speaks of the girls making baskets of honeysuckle stems, meticulously neat and with a technique suspiciously European in detail. We cannot be too sure that something like this did not exist before as many references to baskets of various forms made in the early days are encountered.[4] The Pamunkey Tribe, living on a reservation ten miles south of Mattaponi, have used honeysuckle runners for over twenty years. In both bands the details of form and weave are identical, and the historical circumstances may also be.

ROOT RUNNER BASKETS IN NORTH CAROLINA

The Cherokee Indians of North Carolina used Japanese honeysuckle in basket weaving as early as 1880, when it was introduced by a Cherokee woman named Arizona Blankenship who had been educated at Hampton Institute, Virginia. It is interesting to note that the Cherokee Agency Indian School was founded at Cherokee, North Carolina, that same year.

In January, 1943, Dr. Speck made an extensive trip into the hill country around Cherokee, North Carolina, visiting the old conservative Cherokee Indians of that region. He learned from the old people that honeysuckle basket weaving was not an original Cherokee Indian art. Making inquiry into their history of basket weaving, he could find no evidence of their use of hawthorne (Crataegus) although it is native to that state, or any historical evidence of the use of any other fine root runners. It is possible, of course, that the Hawthorne runners could have been used by other Indian bands in other parts of the state but so far it is not known, notwithstanding the fact Dr. Speck has spent many years of study of Cherokee Indian basketry in North Carolina.[5] Cane and oak splints were used chiefly by the Cherokee in basket weaving and the use of Japanese honeysuckle was undoubtedly a later addition to their culture. An illustration of one of the earliest known types of honeysuckle weave is shown in the Cherokee of North Carolina plate. This basket has no foundation to support the fine root runner fibers although most of their baskets made of honeysuckle runners do have foundations of oak splints. As far as is known no double weaving of fine root runner baskets was done by the Cherokee of this state.

ROOT RUNNER BASKETS IN OKLAHOMA

The Cherokee of Oklahoma used buckbrush (Symphoricarpos Orbiculatus) in making fine root runner baskets and it appears after careful study and extensive inquiry, that this type of basket weaving may have originated among the Indians of Oklahoma. This conclusion is based on many years of collecting baskets from Cherokee Indians in every part of the old Cherokee nation. Interviews with older basket-making women were held through interpreters and it was clearly established that basket making from honeysuckle was not known to them or to their mothers or grandmothers who had lived in Georgia and North Carolina before their removal in 1938 to Oklahoma. The only type of weaving known to them before coming to Oklahoma was the cane and oak-splint weaving. From such interviews these facts could be traced back to as early as 1850. They were certain that the earliest baskets made by their grandparents were out of buckbrush and oak splints; no cane or honeysuckle was used in the northern part of the Cherokee nation.

In the Spavinaw hills country of the northern part of the Cherokee nation the Indians used only buckbrush runners as cane does not grow in this section. In the southern part of the nation, in the vicinity of Gore and Weber Falls, cane grows and is used almost exclusively in basket weaving. In the locality of Tahlequah and Stillwell both cane and buckbrush weaving is done. The Cherokee of this region make both a double and single wicker weave basket of buckbrush runners and no foundation is used in either type although each is strong and serviceable. All of their fine root runner baskets (buckbrush) are a wicker type of weave of unexcelled technique. The double weave basket made by Lucy Mouse (shown in the Oklahoma example) is a splendid specimen of fine weaving—a strong durable basket. The dye used in this basket is walnut stain from boiled walnut hulls.

The buckbrush runners are pulled in the fall of the years and after drying two or three weeks are boiled to remove the bark. The fibers remain flexible enough for weaving all winter which is the basket weaving season.

The shapes were formerly market baskets, fruit trays, egg baskets and storage baskets, some of which were used by them as long as fifty years ago. Twenty-five years ago vegetable dyes were used for coloring but today commercial dyes are largely used; the baskets are made, as a rule, for sale, and show considerable white influence.

—Clark Field

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 6, 1882.

I first became interested in the art work of the Indians while working as a reporter for an Oklahoma daily newspaper in 1900, at which time I covered the opening for settlement of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Indian reservations in southwest Oklahoma. After two years of study (1903-1904) at the University of Oklahoma, I became a traveling salesman and remained in that profession until 1917 when I went into business for myself (retired from business in 1957). About 1918 I became actively interested in Indian pottery and basketry and started my collections. Since that time, Mrs. Field, my daughter Dorothy Field Maxwell (Mrs. Gilbert S.), and I have traveled more than one hundred and twenty five thousand miles collecting in the United States, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Central and South America.

To date (1964) we have spent 46 years in trying to collect authentic specimens of baskets made for actual use by all basket-making tribes (no tourist specimens are included). Intent upon maintaining the highest possible quality throughout the collection, I have always insisted upon acquiring the finest representative basket for its particular tribe or use.

The collection is completely catalogued and photographed and has been given to the Philbrook Art Center of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where it is on exhibition. The collection has been rated by members of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and by members of other museums, as the most comprehensive in the United States for its beauty of specimens and unusual method of display.

Clark Field

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