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he notion that baskets can “speak,” eloquently expressed by Pomo writerGreg Sarris, is reflected in the central role they play as protagonists in manyNative American myths and stories. Native peoples living in California andthe Great Basin share creation myths in which their ancestors were bornfrom womb-like baskets. In one Karuk account, a burden basket wastransformed into a kind of “Noah’s ark,” carrying a man and his dogto safety as a great flood covered the earth. (2) A Salish story tells of abasket containing the remains of a woman’s late husband, which gaveher pleasure in bed and eventually impregnated her with twins. AYokuts tale relates that Coyote, the incorrigible Trickster, poked hishead through an old basket and mocked it as “good for nothing,”only to have it choke him to death! (3)

Walter Benjamin writes of the conjoined acts of storytellingand craftmaking as conduits through which memories of thepast become interwoven with the present. Through the act ofweaving, the mind becomes lost in reverie and words spokenmerge with the rhythmic motion of the hand. Representingthe entwinement of “the weft of the past…[and] the warpof the present,” the cloth becomes a metaphor for tactile,lived experience and its storehouse of knowledge, skilland memory: “Counsel woven into the fabric of livedlife is wisdom.” (4) A basket, then, is both textured andtextual, embodying in material form the ongoingmulti-layered nature of experience and memory.

California and the Great Basin

t

Baskets…have stories, songs, and genealogies.

They have helped us on our travels and told us who we are as

a people. They have healed the sick and forecast

momentous events. The weaver’s hands move, and the basket

takes form so that the story can be known. And the

baskets keep talking. —Greg Sarris 1

Textured Stories:Three California Baskets

by Jessica Horton

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Yet when we encounter Native American baskets in museums and collec-tions, they are often presented as objects of aesthetic contemplation

seemingly divorced from their stories and makers. How do they speak to us insuch situations? Writing of her struggles in translating literary works from for-eign languages, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak warns that we must attempt to re-cover the richness of their contexts lest “we feel the selvedges of thelanguage-textile give way, fray.” (5) This notion of maintaining a tight weaveas we attempt to translate and understand culturally and historically distanttexts and objects will guide my project as I consider three exquisite examplesof California basketry from the early 20th century. In some cases they are illu-minated by their rich biographies; at other times we encounter instead whatSpivak calls “rhetorical silences,” or places where the text (tile) cannot or doesnot speak. (6)

Storytelling thus hovers between the poles of imagining origins and ac-knowledging silences; between the ideal of faithful reproduction and inevitabil-ity of creative retelling. We can only really “touch” the past by encounteringits material forms—its stories and its wisdom—in the midst of our own lived,subjective experiences. In what follows, I will attempt to let looking and touch-ing guide my stories about baskets.

COLLECTOR’S JEWEL: A BASKET BY ELIZABETH CONRAD HICKOX

A lidded trinket basket by master weaver Elizabeth Conrad Hickox (Wiyot,1873–1947), measuring only three-and-a-half inches in diameter, seems de-signed to nestle in the palm of one’s hand. (T0815a–b) Brian Tripp has ob-served of her baskets, “They’re just like little jewels.” (7) Indeed, like a well-cutjewel, the symmetry and striking junctures between gentle curves and crispedges can only be fully grasped by turning the basket and examining it frommultiple angles. Removing the lid, one discovers yet another facet: a delicatesignature circle of double-stitched black stitches surrounding a bold rectan-gular “eye” on the bottom of the basket, set against a foundation of tan willowshoots. This design element is echoed on the knob of the basket. (8) The exte-rior features a cool black field woven of maidenhair fern stem, offset by fourspiraling arms in interlocking zig-zag patterns made of porcupine quill dyed apale, electric yellow. These colorful design elements emphasize the form’s slop-ing sides and create visual movement, encouraging the eye to retrace the pathof the weaver’s hands as she worked inward and upward toward the rim of thebasket.

The decision to weave this basket in miniature speaks volumes about itshistory of creation and exchange. According to Claude Levi-Strauss, minia-

turization is not just a matter of scale; the quantitative diminish-ment of an aesthetic object is accompanied by a sense of its

qualitative simplification. A Brancusi sculpture, for example,imposes on the space of the viewer, commanding her to con-

sider its formal and conceptual complexity; the palm-sizedmodel in the museum gift store can, conversely, be “assessedand apprehended at a glance.” (9) The miniaturization of

objects makes them ideal as souvenirs. Standing in like a part for the whole,the object “speaks to a context of origin through a language of longing.” Thetourist has no practical use for this tiny form, but values it because it evokesthe nostalgia of a past experience that can never be fully recouped. The souveniris preferred as an incomplete, “diminished” allusion to original experience inorder to “make room for” narration of the tourist’s own travel stories. (10)This may have suited both early tourists to California and basket weavers, whocould save precious time while demonstrating their virtuosity in the tiny, tightstitches of the miniature form. (11)

As Marvin Cohodas has recounted elsewhere (see essay, this volume), Eliz-abeth Hickox wove her “jewels” for the California curio trade between the1890s and the 1930s (figure 1). (12) Basket weaving for sale was fueled by aflood of wealthy eastern visitors, who took advantage of a new system of pas-senger trains linking one side of the country to another to explore the “un-tamed west.” Many who came were inspired by the ideologies of theburgeoning Arts and Crafts Movement, which criticized the moral degradationof life in the city and encouraged commune with nature to “bring into playthe primitive springs of thought, impulse and action that exist in every humanbeing.” (13) Baskets and other Native arts were popularized as the antithesisof the modern: hand-made, unique, traditional, natural. Some visitors broughthome only small baskets that would fit in their suitcases, while other enthusiastsamassed collections large enough to build a popular “Indian corner” in thehome. (14) Influential basket connoisseur George Wharton James applauded

?. T0752 the ferns, CA. 1904Scees Bryant Possock (ca. 1858–1918)Washoe, Carson Valley, Nevada.Willow, western redbud, brackenfern root.7 ½" h x 8 ½" dia. Photograph by

Figure 1: Mrs. Luther Hickox(Elizabeth), fine basket maker.This item is reproduced by permission of the

Huntington Library, San Marino, Califonia.

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DEALER’S MYTH: A BASKET BY SCEES BRYANT POSSOCK

While Hickox’s tiny basket nestles in the hand, a ten and a half inch wovensphere by Scees Bryant Possock (Washoe, c. 1858–1918) asks the viewer to stepback to fully comprehend its elegant symmetry. (T0752) Tight rows of stitchescoil outward from a narrow base in a continuous smooth curve, building to aslightly high shoulder before constricting again at the mouth. The subtle shift-ing of weight toward the top of the basket is offset by a delicate tapering of theseven vertical motifs that decorate its sides. Their interlocking v-shaped ele-ments, evocative of feathers or ferns, each appears to sprout from a heavierroot-like base that begins on the upward slope of the basket, emphasizing a di-rectional viewing that moves from the “earth” to “sky.” Subtle alternations incolor between deep mahogany (western redbud) and black (bracken fern root)contribute further to the illusion of botanical representation. Possock hasspaced these elements evenly and integrated them with the overall shape, en-couraging us to think of the basket itself as an organic form, albeit one suffi-ciently abstracted as to flummox identification: a universe or a pebble?

Possock’s basket is an elaboration of a traditional Washoe globular ceremo-nial basket form known as a degikup. As Cohodas has documented, the rapidevolution of basketry forms beginning in the late 19th century paralleled thechanging social conditions of Washoe women during the decades when non-Native farmers, ranchers and tourists settled in Washoe territory along theshores of Lake Tahoe. Though largely part of a new servant class, some distin-guished weavers developed patronage relationships similar to that betweenElizabeth Hickox and Grace Nicholson that permitted them the leisure andeconomic stability to further develop their art. Although details of Possock’spersonal life are largely unknown, it is clear that she was greatly influenced byher sister-in-law Louisa Keyser, the most famous of the Washoe basket weavers.Keyser’s extraordinary experimentations with the degikup as the preferred formof basket-for-sale ensured her lifelong support by basket dealers Abe and AmyCohn. (18) Possock, too, sold her baskets through Cohn’s Emporium in CarsonCity, Nevada; six of them, including the “fern” basket, appear in an Emporiumphotograph and have all been dated between 1900 and 1905. (19)

Possock’s fernlike motifs speak to a transcultural longing, still expressedtoday, to know “what the designs mean.” The increased interest of collectorsin decoding Native symbols in the early 20th century is perhaps best under-stood as a microcosm of a deeper unrest within an American culture that drovemany individuals to seek spiritual sustenance in Native arts and culture. (20)These primitivist soul-searchers would have been sorely disappointed had theyknown that as early as 1902 anthropologists dismissed the notion that outsiderscould establish a clear link between basket designs and elements in nature orspirituality. Native design names often formed a convenient shorthand amongweavers, rather than a profound signifying system. (21) On the cultural signif-icance of both traditional and innovative designs, then, we must for the mostpart accept silence.

The Cohns, however, had a particularly imaginative response to thisdilemma: each basket was sold with a certificate from the Emporium which,among other details, featured a handwritten, largely fabricated “explanation”

the use of baskets both as pleasing decoration and as “indexes to the mind oftheir possessor.” (15) A selection of fine, old, traditional baskets strategicallyplaced over the fireplace encouraged their privileged owners to tell stories ofwestern adventures, basket-hunting, and modern man’s mastery of the dis-courses of craft and primitivism.

Despite an ideological preference for “traditional” baskets, it was preciselythe extraordinary nature of Hickox’s works that commanded outside attentionand enabled her to redefine the standards for basketry art in her era. Althoughboth the lidded trinket basket and the miniature—designs likely borrowedfrom Victorian women’s dressing room accessories—were typically consideredevidence of the “erosion” of traditional Native arts by outside influence,Hickox’s perfected forms became a measure of excellence to collectors andother artists in her community. (16) Grace Nicholson greatly aided this processof acceptance by marketing Hickox’s baskets as the exceptional work of an in-dividual artist. (17) In this sense, Hickox’s story shows that a miniature “sou-venir” could also be transformed into a coveted artwork, commandingjewel-like prices. Her astonishing little basket speaks to the contradictory valuesunderlying the California curio trade and to the individuating forces of cre-ativity and initiative, leading to an unusually flourishing career for a weaverpoised between Native and non-Native economies.

Figure 2: Yokuts women withgambling trays in MaderaCountry, California, 1902.Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, Uni-

versity of California, Berkeley.

(1978.008 W/220/P3 no.1)

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people instead. “Quail learned of this and told the water skaters, who carriedthe word to the ants, who stung the rattlesnake to death and ate him!” (27)Some basketry designs among the Yokuts are thought to allude to the charactersin this story, such as the rattlesnake designs and clusters of small squares onFrancisco’s basket that might represent “ants.” (28) Then again, the inclusionof detailed imagery by a talented weaver might have functioned less as a warn-ing than as an opportunity to show off her artistic achievements to otherwomen in the group or to visitors eager to purchase her baskets. We mightponder whether agility in weaving and in rolling dice go, as it were, hand inhand.

In reality we know nothing of Francisco’s gambling successes, or whethershe even played Huuchuish. She wove gambling trays for the curio trade, andher basket has arrived at our present time through the hands of collectors andcurators whose goal is to preserve, not to play. Yet her stunning achievementhelps to translate stories about Yokuts society in the early twentieth centuryinto tactile and visual terms for her non-Native audiences; these stories havebecome ever more textured with time.

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of the significance of each basket’s design elements. Possock’s certificate from1904 reads, “A growing living plant or fern, symbolizing life, growing, matur-ing. As all good comes from the earth, it means the uplifting of life, the livingof a good life.” Amy Cohn, the mastermind of far more elaborate fictions aboutNative culture, is reported to have lectured at the Women’s Club in CarsonCity in 1914, toting an unidentified basket by Possock and dressed in “the gor-geous costume of an Indian princess wearing many valuable pieces of bead-work into which the history, romance, sorrows and joys of their tribes havebeen woven.” (22) Are her fictions pure advertising rhetoric, harmful acts ofappropriation, or creative storytelling that promoted the art of a talentedweaver? Into Possock’s basket is woven a morally complex story about turn-of-the-century intercultural relationships that is no less ambivalent in theretelling.

WEAVER’S LUCK: A BASKET BY MRS. DICK FRANCISCO

The highly decorated “gambling tray” by Mrs. Dick Francisco (23) (Yokuts,1857–1953) is one of the largest and most finely woven of its kind from theearly 1900s. (T0797) Rows of minute stitches coil outward from the center inconcentric ripples of golden marsh grass root that are punctuated by widebands of repeating motifs in black (bracken fern root) and deep red (redbud).The pictorial nature of some of this imagery—human figures, flowerlike clus-ters and diamond-shaped rattlesnake patterns—is subdued by its role in em-phasizing a circular whole through a mesmerizing play of dark and lightpatterns that move in and out of the eyes’ focus. The tendency to imagine thesepatterns extending indefinitely outward is arrested only by the slightly up-turned edges of the tray (and the likely exhaustion of the artist, who mighthave spent more than a year weaving it!) (24) Francisco’s nearly flat basket canbe hung and viewed vertically like a painting on a gallery wall. In this context,the visual rather than tactile aspects of the work are emphasized as the vieweris encouraged to contemplate its aesthetic impact from an optimal distance.

Yet in a Yokuts cultural context at the turn of the twentieth century, a finelydecorated basket might have formed the dynamic center of a women’s dicegame called Huuchuish. Seated on the ground in a circle, four women wouldtoss eight dice made of hollowed black walnut shells packed with pitch andsmall bits of shell onto the surface of the basket (figure 2). A complicated scor-ing method was kept using small sticks, with particularly intense competitionscontinuing uninterrupted for several days and nights. (25) When in use, then,a basketry tray facilitated “horizontal” socializing and play among women,whose orientation seated around its edges might echo the circular rings ofhuman figures on its interior.

The woman who emerged victorious was considered more than merelylucky. Gambling games involved training and spiritual favor, so that rolling agood combination was “more a reflection on the quality of your character thanan association with random chance.” (26) If finesse was rewarded, fraud waspunished, as one story suggests: Rattlesnake, who was responsible for reportingbad human behavior to the gods, “cheated” one day by incriminating good

?. T0797 gambling tray,CA. 1900Mrs. Dick Francisco (1857–1953),Yokuts,Tule River Reservation, Califor-nia.Marsh grass root, bracken fernroot, red bud.31" dia. Photograph by

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Elizabeth Hickox has the distinction of having produced the finest andmost individualized twined baskets known from California. Apart from

the technical achievement, her work is distinguished by an approach of subtlecomplexity.

Hickox’s father was Charles Conrad, a non-Native miner who, upon comingalone to northern California around 1866, hired a Native Wiyot woman namedPolly to be his housekeeper and settled with her in Karuk territory on the Kla-math River. As with other such families, Conrad lived in a Euro-American-style house, while Polly lived in a separate Native-style dwelling with their threechildren, including Elizabeth, who was born in 1872. Elizabeth’s second hus-band, Luther Hickox, whom she married in 1895, had a similar history: his fa-ther was a non-Native rancher and his mother was a Hupa woman acquired ashousekeeper and brought to live among the Karuk.

Through their inheritance, Luther and his brothers were able to purchase amine near Somes Bar, California, and eventually run a sawmill, providing acomfortable living for their families. In 1916, Luther also became justice of thepeace, increasing the Hickoxs’ affluence and enabling them to purchase one ofthe first automobiles in the area. This financial security allowed Elizabeth, andlater her second daughter Louise (1896–1962) to take the extra time to weaveexceptionally fine baskets, which in turn attracted the attention of California’spremier basketry dealer, Grace Nicholson.

A year after opening her first basket shop in Pasadena in 1902, Nicholsonbegan to spend each slack season traveling to collect baskets and seek out thebest weavers. Her journey in 1906 to Carson City, Nevada inspired her to seeka patronage relationship with an outstanding weaver similar to that establishedbetween Washoe basket maker Louisa Keyser and Abe and Amy Cohn. (1) In1908, after her first encounter with Elizabeth Hickox, Nicholson proposed thatthey undertake an exclusive contract. Often, Nicholson visited in late summerto collect the baskets Hickox had woven during the previous year.

In Pasadena, Nicholson found a ready market for baskets by Hickox andother weavers. Pasadena became the epicenter of the basket craze that sweptthe United States between 1890 and 1905, during the Arts and Crafts Move-ment. Even after that era, many residents of Pasadena chose to build their col-lections with choice, refined baskets. Those by Elizabeth Hickox, and later herdaughter Louise, were among the most outstanding and expensive.

Nicholson maintained her contracts with the Hickoxes until the early 1930s.When Nicholson ceased contact after 1934, Elizabeth Hickox spent subsequentyears making baskets for her family, until her death in 1947.

Left: Plate ?. T0816A–B basket, CA. 1915. Louise Hickox (1896–1967), Karuk/Wiyot, Klamath River, California. beargrass, maidenhair fern, dyed porcupine quills. 7”h x 8” dia. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Right: Plate ?. T0815A–B basket, CA. 1920. Elizabeth Hickox (1875–1947), Karuk/Wiyot, Klamath River, California. Black maidenhair fern, dyed porcupine quills. 3 3/8" h x 3 3/8" dia. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Louise Hickox, Elizabeth Hickox daughter,

was also an accomplished weaver. [These two baskets]

exemplify the elegant design and meticulous

workmanship of these master weavers.

Elizabeth Hickox: California Basket Maker

Extraordinaireby Marvin Cohodas

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Plate ?. T0144

bottleneck basket, CA. 1895.Tubatulabal or Kawaiisu, Kern River, California.Willow or sumac splints, yucca root, devil’s claw, deer grass, woolenyarn, quail feathers. 6 ¾" h x 13 ½" dia. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

This type of basket with a narrow, raised opening and angular shoulder has been described as bottleneck basket, seed jar or treasure basket. Many bottleneck baskets, including this one, have dark red wool tufts accented with elegant black quail feathersthat encircle the edge of the shoulder. The two horizontal bands of diamonds are referred to as a rattlesnake motif, another feature associated with bottleneck baskets.

Plate ?. T0817

tray, CA. 1900Salena Jackson, Maidu, Plumas Country, California. Willow, redbud. 17 ½" dia. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Salena Jackson’s artistry as a Maidu basket weaver ranks her among the most skilled of her time. This coiled basket is made of a three rod willow shoot foundation with redbud- shoots used as the dark contrasting weft elements. The central design layout is based on three points, a popular scheme used throughout northeastern California.

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OPPOSITE: PLATE ?. T0137 danceskirt, PRE-1850Hupa, Trinity River, NorthernCalifornia.Deer hide, glass beads, abaloneshell, maidenhair fern, beargrass (cotton cloth ties added ata later date).34" h x 35" w. Photograph by

This skirt, part of a two-piece dance outfit, was worn during ceremonies. Itwas wrapped around the hips and secured at the front, with an apron un-derneath the front opening. The abalone pendants made a musical soundwhen the skirt was used in dances. The shells and cobalt blue beads werejust two of the many precious materials used by the Hupa, Yoruk andKaruk to decorate dance skirts.

Plate ?. T0511 jump basket, CA. 1900Hupa, Northern California.Hazel sticks, spruce root, bear grass, maidenhair fern stem,deerhide, pigments.5 ½" h x 15" l x 3 ¾" w. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Principal among the Hupa, Yoruk and Karukpeople, the Jump dance is performed as part ofthe World Renewal ceremony. In the dance, amale dancer wears an elaborate costume that in-cludes a headdress, necklaces and deerskin skirt,and carries the Jump basket in his right hand.

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Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk men used elegantly carved elk antlerspoons to eat acorn soup at ceremonies and other importantevents. They made the spoons by cutting flat sections of antlerand steaming them to make them flexible. Next they cut outthe spoon’s form and allowed them to harden. Finally, theyfashioned abstract designs on the handle and smoothed thesurface to an even finish.

?. T0782 spoon, CA. 1900Yurok, Hupa or Karuk, California.Elk antler. 6 ½" h x 2 1/2" w x 2" d. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

?. T0783 spoon, CA. 1900Yurok, Hupa or Karuk, California.Elk antler. 7 ¼" h x 2 ¾" w x 1 ½" d. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Plate ?. T0487 cap, CA. 1900Hupa or Karuk, Northern California.Bear grass, maidenhair fern, porcupine quills, staghorn lichen dye, spruceroot, hazel sticks.4" h x 7" dia. Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor ?

Fancy dress caps made of the finest quality twined materials, such as this one,are still made and worn by women today.