THE INTERRELATION OF TECHNIQUE AND DESIGN IN NORTH AMERICAN BASKETRY

137 Pages·05.178 MB·English

by  WELTFISH, GENE

The Interrelation of Technique and Design
in North American Basketry
By
Gene Weltflsh
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Faculty of Political Science,
Columbia University
i
CONTENTS
Page
I. INTRODUCTION ................................. 1
II. THE LOCATION AND STATUS OF MODERN TRIBAL
GROUPINGS IN THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL
CALIFORNIA AREA.............................. 12
III. DISTRIBUTION OF DESIGNS IN CENTRAL AND NORTH
CALIFORNIA BASKETRY......................... 17
IV. THE COILING AND TWINING TECHNIQUES.......... 22
G £ n _e r a 1 C o n s i d e r a t i o n 8 . 22
The. l o l l i n g T ^c .hn j. ^u .e . . 24
The Foundation......................... 25
The Stitching........................... 27
The Spiral Structure ................... 29
Shaping.................................. 30
Work surface.............................. 31
(Characterization of the Technical
Style of Colling.................. 33
Incidental Features.................. 34
Startlng-knot ....................... 35
Sewing the rim....................... 36
Finishing off the Coil.............. 37
Splicing the Sewing Thread....... 37
Splicing the Foundation Element . . . 38
The Mechanical Independence of the
Various Technical Traits . 7 . . . 38
Stability and Degree of Conventlonall-
zatlon of the Technical Traits of
dolllngl . ........ .. . V ’. . • 40
The Mechanics of Constructing a Design
In the Colling Technique......... 46
General Design Planning ............. 47
Design Placement.................. 50
(Areas of the Whole Surface Chosen
for Decoration)................ 50
In Relation to Shape....... 50
In Relation to Technical
Struoture.................. 50
Design Arrangement. ............... 54
(Arrangement of Smaller Design Units
within the Areas of Decoration . . 54
(Mechanics of Constructing Arrange­
ment 2 - diagonal whorl) . . . . 55
(Mechanics of Constructing Arrange­
ment 3 - vertical radial..... 55
(Mechanics of Constructing Arrange­
ment 4 - horizontal - circular. . 56
ii
Construction of Design Unit and
Design Element..................... 57
I. E. E. 2. iL .£ d; b x
£ o. i. 1 i, n £ U £ o n t h e ~
J3 t. r £ T £ h jt-E d £ _e d £ e o m e t r i c
D .e .8 i £ n......... 62
Limitations and Distortions in the
Representation of Horizontal Linen
in Colling....................... 63
Limitations and Distortions In the
Representation of Vertical Lines
in Colling....................... 67
Distortions and New Elaborations in
the Representation of Diagonal
Lines in Colling................. 68
C_£nc_lu_s.io_n o. n t. h .e
X n t ^ _ g r r _ e l a j t i o . n o f~*
1 e o h n iiju e a n d D _e _s _i £ n
in iliaa.............. ?2
The. T w _i n 1. n £ T e c h n i j a u e . • 74
Building and""Shaping the Twined Basket . 76
Variables In Stitching ................. 78
Special Structural Eroblems.......... 86
The Meohanlos of Constructing a Design
in Twining................. 92
V. HISTORICAL SUMMARY...................... 105
1 u S E a £ I o_ f, t h e M a i n
T _ e £ h n l £ a l Z e i l l i i e s o f
C a l i f o r n i a C o i l i n g ,
I l i a n g e d b j; T r 1 b e j . . . . 105
S u m m £ r £ o f t h e M a i n
1 e ° ll H i 2. £
C a l i f o r n i a T w _i n 3. n £, "~*
A r r £ n £ £ d b £ T r i b e s . . . • 111
H i s t o r i c a l S u m m a r y a s
I_ n f, _e r r _e d~ f r o m Jt h
P r e s e n t D i s t r i b u t i o n
0 f I e c h n i flu e s ............ 113
S u m m a r y .fl £
1 n f _ e r r _ e d f r o m t_ h je
S r c _ h _ e o l _ 0 £ i c _ a l D a t a , . . . 116
lii
Page
VI. CONCLUSION ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FORE­
GOING DATA FOR TilE QUESTION OF THE INTER­
RELATION OF TECHNIQUE AND DESIGN IN NORTH
AMERICAN BASKETRY............................ 127
LITERATURE CITED................................ 131
I.
INTRODUCTION
It is one of the functions of science insofar as
possible to seek for laws or extensive generalizations.
In the last century, Gottfried Semper, architect and art
historian, after a study of architectural remains of
ancient classical cultures came to the conclusion that
many of the design features were derived from the early
1
crafts, especially basketry and matting. The geometric
character of many of the designs, and the common occur­
rence of angularity suggested this to him. In 1902,
Max Schmidt, a German Jurist and ethnologist, carried the
question further in his detailed analysis of the textile
2
T
crafts of the Amazon Indians of Central Brazil. After
living with the Indians for some time and observing their
manufacturing procedures, he demonstrated that the practice
of the twill-plaiting technique, and the texture patterns
that resulted from it, gave rise to a number of familiar
geometric designs — the diamond, the zigzag, and the fret-
hook — which were in turn copied in painted outline on
woodwork and pottery.
1. Gottfried Semper. Der Stll in den Technlschen und
tektonischen Kunsten, 2 vols., Munich, 1878.
2. Max Schmidt, Indlanerstudien in Zentralbrasilien,
Berlin, 1905.
2
The question is, whether the same thing holds true
with regard to North American basketry. Do the procedures
of basket-making in North America also give rise to emer­
gent texture patterns which are then copied in other media?
After an intensive analysis of the material, the answer is
largely negative. This negative finding, however, is
highly important for the question, as it serves to throw
into relief the nature of the correlation found in the
Amazonian twill-plaiting. Since in their mechanics, the
North American techniques are radically different from
twill-plaiting, the geometric designs in question must be
correlated with the specific mechanics of twill-plaiting
and not with basketry techniques in general.
Basketry techniques as such are very diverse. The
only common definition that can be given is that a basket
is a woven container. All the fundamental techniques
involving the interlacing of fibers have been utilized at
some time or in some place for thlB purpose. On account
of their use in making a container, certain adaptations of
the weaves have been made, chiefly in the general structure
of the whole fabric. But the texture itself is identical
with what we find in many flat fabrics, and it is quite
likely that the weaving techniques were first used in these
flat fabrics and then adapted to the problem of making a
container, so that the fabric had to be given three-dimen­
sional form. The technique of basket-making, therefore,
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is not a unit, but a diverse series of techniques all
adapted to a special purpose.
All the basketry weaves of ancient and modern times
can be classified under four general heads in accordance
with basic differences in mechanical principles: plaiting,
wicker, twining, and coiling. We are all fairly familiar
with the principle of plaiting in old-fashioned market
baskets with a checker-like surface and in the twilled
cane fabric that covers the seats of streetcars and the
bottom of caned chairs. Two sets of flexible flat ribbon­
like elements are crossed and Interwoven, both sets of
elements being identical in quality and proportions.
Braiding, expecially with four or five strands, is a
rudimentary form of this weave.
Twining and wicker, which are closely related to
each other, differ fundamentally from plaiting in that
there is a definite radial or vertical skeleton of sticks,
and woven in and out among these sticks Isa more flexible
ribbon or stem. Coarse examples of these techniques are
known to us in the form of wicker furniture and baby
carriages.
Colling is very different from both of these in that
it is a sewing and not a weaving technique. It is a kind of
continuous process of overcasting, the flexible stitches
covering and binding together the successive courses of a
spiral foundation. This technique is the most unfamiliar
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of all to us and there are no objects of daily use in which
it is exemplified. There are charred fragments of coiled
basketry in the remains of the Swiss Lake Dwellings of the
Neolithic period that are probably more than 4000 years old,
but for periods more recent than this only the other tech­
niques seem to have survived. This weave has gone wholly
out of fashion in Western civilization, the functions of
colled basketry having been taken over by pottery. Coiling
is the most laborious of techniques and takes the longest
to do, but the baskets in this weave are exceedingly durable,
usually watertight, can be used to hold liquid foods and are
commonly employed In North America for stone boiling or for
parching and roasting seeds. All these functions except
durability can be very well served by pottery vessels and
these take much, less time and energy to make. A parallel
process of replacing coiled basketry with pottery occurred
on a much later time level among the Pueblo Indians of the
American Southwest. Starting out as fine artists in coiled
basket-making at the beginning of the Christian Era, •with
baskets being put to a multitude of uses, more and more of
these functions were taken over by pottery which in this
region had its beginnings approximately in the fourth
century. Coiled baskets were made in more and more
delicate textures and came to occupy the place of an occa­
sional show piece. After white contact the workmanship
became coarser and the art in its ancient form was abandoned
5
about fifty years ago. In North America, the art survives
today mainly among non-pottery-using peoples, the Paiuto
and Shoshone of the Great Basin, the Apaches and the
Navahoes of the Southwest, and numerous Indian tribes of
central and southern California.
I will not dwell on the detailed distribution of
these techniques on the American continent, but in the main
there seems to be a contrast betv/een North and South America
in that in North America, especially north of 2-Iexico, the
finest and most elaborately decorated basketry is made in
the coiled and twined weaves, while in South America
plaiting is predominant.1
The main center of the art in South America is in
the Guianas, and on the Amazon. In North America the best
work is done on the Pacific Coast in an area stretching
from Alaska to the south of California; in the north,
twined basketry reaches its highest perfection, and in
the south, coiling, but where the two regions meet in
central California, the Porno Indians excel all others in
the virtuosity they have achieved in both techniques.
It is with the colling and twining techniques that
we will be especially concerned in this study, for it is
in these two techniques as they occur in the west coast
1. The Chltlmacha of Louisiana and other Gulf tribes are
an exoeption to this statement. However, their basketry
should be conceived as a readily identifiable branch of
the South American tradition.
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region of North America that most of the designs in
basketry are found.
There are many features of the experience of the
American Indian craftsman that might be important factors
in his design-creative process. The question at issue is
whether the technique of weaving itself was definitive in
giving rise to design ideas. But in order to Isolate this
factor, other features that are important in design develop­
ment must be controlled. Of these, materials, shapes, and
uses play some part.
The materials used in making basketry are stiff and
coarse and when Interwoven do not allow for curves or minute
detail, so that all basket design is of necessity somewhat
stiff and angular.
Also, as pointed out by Van Scheltema,^ the share
of the object decorated gives rise in many cases to new
designs or constitutes a partial stimulus to design
development.
The use of the object might be very important in
determining what kind of designs are applied. In our own
culture, in utilitarian objects decoration is commonly
omitted or kept down to a minimum. Today in our modern
kitchenware we have introduced color, but more elaborate
floral or geometric designs would be considered out of place.
1. Adama van Soheltema. Altnordlsche Kunst. Berlin, 1924.