Basket

Basket

Basket

sompochee

2: FURNISHINGS

HOUSEHOLD ACCESSORY

Seminole

Multicolored round lidded, handled basket with doll head on top

Multicolored round lidded, handled basket with doll head on top. Flat base constructed of palmetto bark fiber. Sides constructed of open coiled sweet grass stitched together. Sides bow out from base until about 1.5” from top where they come back in two handles, located on opposite sides at the widest point. are made of a single sweetgrass coil integrated into the construction. The handles are wrapped with orange thread, which is the same color thread used in the adjoining coil. The coils are sewn together with decorative stitching that creates continuous vertical lines about 1” apart up the sides of the basket with short, upright-pointing diagonal lines (about 3/8” long) that come off of the left of the vertical lines from the bottom to the top of each coil (about 1/4” diameter). The colors change each four coils, and from the base tot op are lilac, pale pink, dark blue, red, green, orange, dark blue and red. The stitching length of the horizontal lines is fairly even. The rim is just the top sweetgrass coil. The top coil concludes with a gentle taper that produces a seamless ending. The lid is constructed with a flat top of palmetto fiber with 7 coils of sweetgrass sloping down tot he edge. A thin piece of split palmetto is sewn on the underside of the lid, to fit inside the basket rim, with purple diagonal overcast stitching. the lid coils have the same pattern of stitching as the basket, but the diagonal lines point down and to the right. The colors change every two coils, and from the base tot he top are green, orange, and dark blue (with 3 coils). A women’s doll head is sewn to the center of the lid. The body of the head is constructed of palmetto fiber. It is approximately 2: tall and 4 1/2” wide. There are four rows glass seed beads around its neck (from bottom: yellow, orange, red and dark blue), two beaded earrings (from bottom: white, large red, two yellow) and black cloth formed to look like an elaborate Seminole hairstyle. A red mouth and black and white eyes are embroidered on the palmetto bark face. the Bottom of the doll’s head cannot be seen in the underside of the lid.

store small personal items

D32"

H11"

1951 1955 own/col

fiber(sweetgrass) fiber (palmetto bark) fiber (cotton or cotton-blend) glass cardboard? fiber (palmetto stem)

coiled sewn

bead embroid

Seminole

EXCEL

Davis, Hilda J. -donation

Davis, Hilda J. anthropological/ethnological
field

1984-06-0001

Object

FL

USA

NA

2009 RECAT: Jodine Perkins

2009 RECAT:
Downs p 198-99 Put quote here from book about split palmetto stems

2009 Recat: See Mowat, Linda. 1992. “A Guide to Basketmaking.” in Basketmakers: Meaning and Form in Native American Baskets, ed. Linda Mowat, Howard Morphy and Penny Dransart, 5-10 Monograph 5. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. pg 9
for information on open coiling technique
See Downs, Dorothy. 1997. art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians, pg 198-199 on technique for creating split palmetto stems

Indiana University/Mathers Museum