Biographical information on American Indian Basketmakers at Bair's.

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~ American Indian Basketmakers ~
Please note that the biographical information provided below is from a variety of sources, including our own personal knowledge.

The basket making talents of the Indians of the American Southwest have been and still are remarkable.

Pictured above (l-r): Navajo ceremonial (wedding) basket; miniature Tohono O'odham horsehair basket;
Tohono O'odham (Papago) closed stitch fret design basket; Tohono O'odham duck effigy basket;
Tohono O'odham "Man in the Maze" basket made of yucca and devil's claw; Navajo ceremonial basket.
(The baskets shown above range in size from 2" to 12" in diameter but the images have been scaled to the same size.)

Andrews, Alice (Tohono O'odham)

Andrews, Elaine (Tohono O'odham)

Antone, Lucy (Tohono O'odham)

Black, Mary Holiday (Navajo)

Black, Sonja (Navajo)

Cly, Evelyn (Navajo)

Coontz, Louann (Tohono O'odham)
See Louann Shannon.

Enos, Rochelle (Tohono O'odham)

Francisco, Georgia (Tohono O'odham)

Francisco, Sinclair (Tohono O'odham)

Garcia, Malinda (Tohono O'odham)

Johnson, Betty Rock (Navajo)
Betty was born and raised on the Eastern edge of Monument Valley. She was raised traditionally in the old way of the Dine ("the people") and began weaving baskets as a girl. She has in turn taught her children the art of basketweaving.

Johnson, Cody (Navajo)

Jose, Adeline (Tohono O'odham)

Jose, Eldina (Tohono O'odham)

Juan, Lou Ann (Tohono O'odham)

Juan, Erma (Tohono O'odham)

Juan, Ernestine (Tohono O'odham)

Juan, Evelyn (Tohono O'odham)

Listo, Marcella (Tohono O'odham)

Lopez, Debbie (Tohono O'odham)

Lopez, Elizabeth T. (Tohono O'odham)

Lopez, Esther (Tohono O'odham)

Lopez, Natalie (Tohono O'odham)

Marks, Myra (Tohono O'odham)

Miguel, Faye (Tohono O'odham)

Miguel, Verna (Tohono O'odham)

Pablo, Jeanette (Tohono O'odham)

Pablo, Mary (Tohono O'odham)

Rock, Charlene (Navajo)

Rock, Jenny (Navajo)

Saraficio, Margaret (Tohono O'odham)

Shannon, Louann (Tohono O'odham)
Louann was born and raised on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in southern Arizona in the Gu-Achi district, Ak-Chin village. She learned the art of basket weaving at the age of 14, from an old family friend. As of 2004, she has been making baskets for 12 years and weaves very nicely made miniature horsehair baskets such as small plates, lidded baskets, and larger plates with more intricate designs, as well as horsehair earrings. Formally known as Louann Coontz and Louann Jose.

Thomas, Ruby (Tohono O'odham)

Thomas, Virginia (Tohono O'odham)

Ventura, Faye, (Tohono O'odham)

Whiskers, Rose Ann (Paiute)

Williams, Agnes (Tohono O'odham)

More information on additional American Indian Basketmakers to come.
Please check back with us for this information.

The present day tribal lands of the Navajo Nation consist of 17,686,465 acres (over 27,000 square miles) in northerneastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. Approximately the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Reservation is larger than ten of the 50 states in America. The reservation was created in 1868, and has since been expanded to its current size. It features over a dozen national monuments, tribal parks, and prehistoric sites. Population on the reservation today is over 180,000. Sumac is the material that Navajo weavers gather to make ceremonial baskets. Thin sumac branches are used for the rods around which the split sumac is woven. Baskets are used in most of over fifty different kinds of sacred ceremonies practiced in the traditional Navajo culture and depending on the length of the ceremony, up to seven different baskets may be needed.

Navajo ceremonial baskets, while often referred to as "Wedding Baskets," are used in a variety of sacred ceremonies of the Diné. "The basket is viewed as a map, through which the Navajo people chart their lives. The central spot in the basket represent the sipapu, where the Navajo people emerged from the prior world through a reed. As the people emerged, all was white. The inner coils of the basket are white to represent this lightness, or birth. As you travel outward [in a circular direction] on the coils you begin to encounter more and more black. The black represents darkness, struggle and pain; the darker side of life. As you make your way through the darkness you eventually reach the red bands, which represent marriage; the mixing of your blood with your spouse and the creation of family. The red is pure. During this time there is no darkness. Traveling out of the familial bands you encounter more darkness however, the darkness is interspersed with white light. The light represents increasing enlightenment, which expands until you enter the all white banding of the outer rim. This banding represents the spirit world where there is no darkness. The line from the center of the basket to the outer rim is there to remind you that no matter how much darkness you encounter in your world, there is always a pathway to the light." (As told to Steven P. Simpson by an informant, 1993)

Members of the Tohono O'odham tribal nation (formerly known as Papago Indians), live along the Arizona, Mexico border. Their present tribal lands, established in 1874, consist of a three parcel reservation of 2,854,881 acres (approximately 5,000 square miles), in the Sonoran Desert in south central Arizona and into Mexico, an area comparable in size to the state of Connecticut, but with a population of 27,500 members. Basket making is a long-honored tradition of the Tohono O'odham people who make baskets from various materials such as willow, yucca (most common today), and horsehair. Traditionally, the men harvested the materials and women were the basketmakers. Some families began making the natural material harvesting a family event leading to a transition where now there are some men who are basketmakers in their families as well.
In the handmaking of Tohono O'odham baskets, materials are harvested, the yucca fibers are laid out to be bleached by the sun and are then split for weaving. The baskets are carefully woven around a core of beargrass first starting at a central core at the base using simple tools. Lengths of beargrass are continually spliced in to provide the foundation for building the basket. Yucca root and Devil's Claw are split to create decorative geometric or pictorial patterns and to add finished detail to the top or outside edge of some baskets. When first made, the appearance of the yucca is generally white due to its being sun-bleached. With age, the color will slowly darken by degrees, a process that does not detract from the item in any way.

Decorative basket patterns include fret designs, turtle back designs, coyote tracks, dragging coyote tracks, cross designs, stars, squash blossoms, dust-devils, human figures, saguaro fruit picking scenes, the well-known "man in the maze" pattern, and representations of antelopes, bats, bees, ducks, humming birds, rattlesnakes, and turtles. Some designs are done in the negative using devil's claw as the the background and yucca or willow for the design. The "Man in the Maze" legend is of Iitoi, also known as Elder Brother. Spared from death by his creator because of his true and honest ways, he was chosen to help create the Hohokam people from whom the Tohono O'odham descended, after a flood killed all the other desert people who had turned sinful. The legend goes on, and takes on deeper meanings of birth of the individual, the family and the tribe, and of one's confrontation and coming to terms with their own death.

This Page is Under Development. Please check back at a later date for more complete information.

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