Utility Basket
Cherokee
Eastern Band of Cherokee
Southeast
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
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
Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023
Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023
Art History 40.01, American Art and Identity, Mary Coffey, Fall 2023
Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023
Geography 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Emma Colven, Fall 2023
Geography 2.01, Introduction to Human Geography, Coleen Fox, Fall 2023
Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023
English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024
Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024
Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024
Exhibition History
Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 19, 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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