The influence of other culture groups upon the craft of basket weaving is so great that each year fewer baskets are produced by the regular weavers. The Indian women have learned that they can secure mass produced articles as a substitute for baskets. Only two percent of the types of baskets included in this collection are now being made. It is quite probable that by the year 2000 there will be NO Indian baskets being woven.
Very few people are aware that baskets were made by the Ozark “Bluff Dwellers.” A special exhibit in the University of Arkansas Museum, Fayetteville, contains a small basket filled with grasshoppers. The University Museum points out that as long ago as the year 1 A.D., baskets were being made by Indians in the Ozark Area. This provides further evidence of the Indian’s early inhabitance of this country.
These tightly woven baskets made by _Thlinkits_ of Alaska, were woven from spruce tree roots which were split by hand. The baskets were used to hold boiling water for clam cooking. The fibers swelled to such an extent that water could be retained in the basket for as long as five hours. Today this tribe purchases a kettle or bucket for their boiling needs. (See Plate 9c)
These large _Apache_ baskets used for storing grain, were made about 1874. It required as long as three months to produce this type of specimen and since 1914 very few have been made. The twenty-five cent burlap sack has replaced it. (See Plate 6c)
This _Cochiti_ bird cage, made of a yucca plant, has been replaced by metal bird cages.
The Anglo appropriated many Indian basket ideas for his own use:
The _Penobscot_ colander was found in use as such among the people of this Maine tribe and was made about 1841. It is quite possible that we took this as a pattern for our own metal colanders. (See Plate 10a)
It is also quite possible that we copied the pattern of the _Catawba_, North Carolina, fish trap for our own minnow trap. (See Plate 4a)
The average weaver does not use more than five or six figures in a design.
Case No. 3: _Mission_ of California—a quail and flying duck design. (See Plate 11b)
Case No. 3: _Shoshone_ (Panamint), Death Valley California—Oriole design food bowl. (See Plate 11c)