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shallow birchbark basket
shallow birchbark basket
shallow birchbark basket
Shallow birchbark basket made of four or five pieces of birchbark, porcupine quills, and spruce root. The spruce root is interwoven with flattened porcupine quills that form a checkerboard pattern, which is understood to be a pre-contact technique. Quillwork on sides is in floral motifs. This item was collected by Johann Georg Schwarz in the 1820s, and it is currently housed at the Weltmuseum Wien, Austria.
Autumn Epple theorizes based on style and materials that this object was made by the Odawa.
Read More About This Relative
Birchbark, porcupine quills, spruce root.
Birchbark pieces are bent; the basket appears to be made of 4 pieces, possibly a 5th to form the bottom; the inside seams have been covered in single long quills that are tacked down; one feature that is a pre-contact technique is that the spruce root is interwoven with flattened porcupine quills that form a checkerboard pattern.
Floral; six petaled flowers; double curves have been elaborated into stems of flowers.
Johann Georg Schwarz collected this item, possibly when he traveled to Detroit and through Upper Canada in the winter of 1820-1821.
Provenance
Johann Georg Schwarz traveled to Detroit and through Upper Canada in the winter of 1820-1821.
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Odawa artist, shallow birchbark basket. Currently in the Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 11989. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip January 2016; GRASAC item id 59010.
In January of 2016, a small team of GRASAC researchers visited the collection to study and photograph it: Ruth Phillips, Lisa Truong, Naomi Recollet (Anishinaabe (Odawa/Ojibwe), Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) and Wahsontiio Cross (Mohawk, Kahnawake). This GKS record was created in December of 2021 by GRASAC RA Aidan Mitchell-Boudreau.