Spruce Root Basketry of the Alaska Tlingit

By Frances Lackey Paul

The beautiful, artistic, and unique baskets of the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska. Numerous photos throughout.

From earliest times the basket was made to use. In the huge community house of the winter village or the bark shelter of the summer fishing camp the furniture Consisted of baskets and wooden boxes. The old Tlingit did not understand the arts of pottery making or metal working. Baskets were used for cooking kettles, in which the women placed their meat or berries. They then dropped hot stones on the food with wooden tongs, added enough water to generate steam, covered the basket, and then set it aside until the food was cooked. Baskets, so closely woven as to be water tight, were their water jars and drinking cups. Baskets were one form of the family trunk, especially when traveling, because of their light weight. Baskets were used for gathering berries, roots and shellfish, for trying out seal and eulachon oil, for food dishes and for storage of food for winter. The typical work hat of the district, even some types of ceremonial hat, the headdresses of shaman or Indian doctors, shot pouches, work baskets, rattles and spoon bags were all woven from spruce root or cedar bark. This art was also used to make fish traps, net bags for eulachon fishing, huge mats for canoe sails and floor covering, the cradle swing for the baby and the winding sheet for the old shaman when his body was taken to the lonely burial house.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Release date: May 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781839746918

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© Barakaldo Books 2020, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

SPRUCE ROOT BASKETRY OF THE ALASKA TLINGIT

BY

FRANCES PAUL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

MAP 5

THE TLINGIT COUNTRY 8

ILLUSTRATIONS 10

FIGURES 12

DESIGNS 13

INTRODUCTION 16

Legend of the Origin of Basketry 16

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION 17

USES OF BASKETS 20

BASKETRY MATERIALS 21

THE SPRUCE ROOT 21

GRASSES AND STEMS 23

DYEING 25

THE TECHNIQUES OF WEAVING 30

THE FIVE TYPES 32

WEAVE 1 37

WEAVE 2 37

WEAVE 3 37

WEAVE 4 41

WEAVE 5 43

BORDERS 46

THE BASKET BOTTOM 52

FORMS OF BASKETS 56

ROOT HATS 63

Legend of the Raven and the Flood 64

ORNAMENTATION 70

PATTERN NAMES 73

The Legend of the Woodworm 75

THE MOTHER-BASKET OF THE CHILKAT 98

Legend of the Mountain Dweller 100

BIBLIOGRAPHY 102

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 111

MAP

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THE TLINGIT COUNTRY

This map of southeastern Alaska shows the distribution of basket culture among the Tlingit when it was most flourishing. The basketry centers were about fourteen in number and extended from Dixon Entrance to the Copper River. The modern towns of Ketchikan, Klawock, Petersburg, Douglas, Skagway and Cordova, while built an sites occupied and claimed by certain Tlingit families, were not main villages in the olden days; consequently their locations have been marked by circles instead of baskets.

The designs on the map baskets have no particular significance in relation to the village they mark, as the patterns were common to the whole district.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

The photographs which follow were taken especially for this monograph by Dr. George A. Dale, Associate Supervisor of Elementary Education, Alaska Division, United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and by William L. Paul Jr., and are used through their courtesy. Special thanks is also due Mr. Edward L. Keithahn, Curator of the Alaska Territorial Museum, for his cooperation in securing the photographs.

Plate

I. A present day Tlingit basket weaver

II. A modern spruce root basket

III. A Tlingit weaver splitting the spruce root

IV. The use of grass for developing the design

V. A festoon of drying bleached grass stems

VI. A basket with the design developed in maiden hair fern stems

VII. The first step in splitting the dried grass

VIII. The second step, flattening the split stem

IX. The last step, resplitting the grass

X. The modern weaver at work

XI. The double warp splint and the two weft strands

XII. Wefts 1 and 2 crossed

XIII. The right thumb about to bring warp strand through loop of weft

XIV. The left hand taking over warp

XV. Weave 1, standard weave

XVI. Weave 2, between

XVII. Weave 3, rough like the skin on a frog’s back

XVIII. A spruce root hat showing weave

XIX. Weave 4, eyeholes

XX. Ornamental basket showing combination of weave with weave

XXI. Weave 5, braided

XXII. A covered basket illustrating border finish

XXIII. A basket illustrating eyehole weave

XXIV. A basket bottom

XXV. A cylindrical medium sized basket

XXVI. A flared cylinder

XXVII. An old berrying basket

XXVIII. A small double basket

XXIX. A spoon bag

XXX. A berry screening plaque

XXXI. A covered basket with chamber in the lid

XXXII. The second type of spruce root hat

XXXIII. A ceremonial root hat with cylindrical head piece

XXXIV. Motives of design applied to plain root background

XXXV. Design and background worked in grass overlay

XXXVI. A realistic design showing Raven carrying a spring salmon

FIGURES

Figures 14 through 25 and the forty-nine units of design reproduced from Emmons by Gehres D. Weed, draftsman in the USIA Construction Division, have been supplied through the cooperation of the Arts and Crafts Department, Education Division, Alaska Indian Service.

1. Weave 1, standard weave

2. Weave 1, strawberry weave

3. Weave 1, oil strainer

4. Weave 2, between

5. Weave 3, rough like the skin on a frog’s back

6. Weave 4, eye-holes

7. Weave 5, braided

8. Border 1

9. Border 2

10. Border 3

11. Border 4

12. Border 5

13. Border 6

14. through 25. Combinations taken from old baskets beginning on

DESIGNS