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basket, birchbark
basket, birchbark
basket, birchbark
A round 18th century Cree birchbark basket with a rim wrapped in split root and porcupine quills and cut to form an octagonal base. This single basket may have been part of a nested set made in graduated sizes. Bequest to Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in 1947 by Dr. Louis Cobbett.
Based on attribution of similar baskets: Captain Middleton's 18th century examples were collected on Hudson's Bay.
Museum documentation and the GRASAC research team.
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birchbark; split spruce (?) root; porcupine quills, natural and dyed red, yellow, black and green/blue; dark brown element interwoven on the rim may be bark from a shrub.
Made from a single piece of bark, with its sides cut in eight places, folded up and sewn with a finer split root in a stitch which forms a chain pattern (each stitch splits the middle of the root of the stitch before it). The base is octagonal, and the rim is a circle. Trudy Nicks notes that she has seen contemporary birchbark artists briefly heat the bark while shaping and folding to make it more pliable.
The base of each seam is held in place by a small tacking stitch to prevent the bark from splitting. The rim is wrapped at 90 degree intervals with porcupine quills in two different, alternating striped patterns of red, yellowy-white, and black; and white, light red, and shades of green (faded from blue?). In between the quill-wrappings are four sections of split root wrapping interwoven with a darker brown root or quill. Traces of the scored circle and diameter, incised to establish the shape of the basket, can be seen on the bark in the inside.
The circular rim is divided into four equal quadrants by quill wrapped sections.
Such baskets were often made in graduated sizes and sold as nested sets. It is likely that these sets were broken up and given to friends, family members and other collectors when brought to Britain.
This type of basket is depicted in a painting dated 1757 by Arthur Devis, now in the Clark Art Museum (Williamstown, Massachusetts) (Object Number: 2001.1.6). It is also related to the set of graduated baskets of this type collected in the mid-18th century by Captain Middleton, originally in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane and now in the British Museum.
Provenance
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Mushkegowuk (Western James Bay Cree) artist, basket, birchbark. Currently in the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1947.433. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip May 2009; GRASAC item id 25662.
This record was created as part of a GRASAC research trip to Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, May 4-9 2009.