Utility Basket

Cherokee
Eastern Band of Cherokee
Southeast

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about 1900

River cane splints (warp and weft), hickory bark (outer rim wrapping), oak (handle), and native dyes; twill plaiting technique; Chief's Daughters with Cross pattern

Overall: 12 1/2 × 9 7/16 × 9 7/16 in. (31.8 × 24 × 24 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Bequest of Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill

46.17.9535

Geography

Place Made: Cherokee, United States, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Basket

Research Area

Native American

Native American: Southeast

Not on view

Inscriptions

Pyrographed, on handle: Cherokee Indians

Label

The Cherokee woman who wove this basket 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. 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-June 16, 2024.

Northern Native American Basketry, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 4, 1990-October 20, 1991.

Publication History

Tamara Northern and Davina Begaye, Guide to the Exhibition of Northern Native American Basketry, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1990.

Provenance

Unknown maker, Cherokee, North Carolina; collected by Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), Cherokee, North Carolina, 1908-1909; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.

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