"Cownose" Basket with Handle

Choctaw
Southeast

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early 20th century

River cane, twill plaiting, and dye

Overall: 10 1/4 × 8 11/16 × 3 1/4 in. (26 × 22 × 8.3 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Capt. Herbert L. Shuttleworth II, Class of 1935

43.25.8654

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Basket

Research Area

Native American

Native American: Southeast

Not on view

Label

The Choctaw women who wove these baskets used river cane, a semi-aquatic grass cultivated along riverbanks. Several Native American tribes from the southeastern United States tended these grasses, caring for them and nurturing them, to weave baskets used within their communities and traded with their neighbors.

When the Choctaw were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), they brought these traditions with them and cultivated river cane along the banks of Oklahoma’s rivers. Using a double-weave structure, essentially weaving one basket into another, some highly skilled women wove baskets so tightly that they could even hold water.

From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023

Exhibition History

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-December 14, 2023.

Provenance

Captain Herbert L. Shuttleworth II (1913-2010, Class of 1935), Amsterdam, New York; given to present collection, 1943.

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