 | The material culture of Pueblo Bonito |  |
PLAITED BASKETS
Since Basket Maker days, approximately 15 centuries ago, plaited
baskets have been common household utensils throughout the Pueblo
The modern Hopi employ the same technique in plaiting baskets and
floor mats; their baskets, in fact, are no more than small mats bent
over an osier ring and made fast. This long-established use of osiers
to give plaited baskets their bowl-like shape has provided a handy term
for the entire group: "ring basket."
Ring baskets in our collection are represented by the fragments
shown on plate 40. The first, our only ornamented example, was
square and may have been no more than a shallow tray. Its weaving
interval is over-3-under-3, and the yucca strips were so manipulated
as to create interlocking meanders. If the rolled edges were shaped
over a rod, no trace remains of such a member; neither is it clear how
the strip ends were secured.
Figure b, part of the nearer specimen shown in situ on plate 35,
lower, is more in keeping with the typical ring basket. It was approximately
12 inches in diameter. The weaving elements, again narrow
strips of yucca leaves, were brought across the osier ring, bent back
underneath, and fastened in pairs by other strips twined close under
the willow. That the weaver sought to fit her fabric to a waiting ring
seems clear from the fact that the normal over-3-under-3 interval
changes repeatedly around the periphery to under-2 and even under-1.
In figures c and d we have two fragments of another basket bowl.
In this case, however, strips of rush leaves (Scirpus paludosus Nelson)
rather than yucca provided the material, and the strip ends were retained
to form an external, ornamental braid. Warping of the willow
rod, not intent, gives the smaller piece a suggestion of squareness.
Finally we come to our best-preserved specimen, found on the floor
of Room 290 (pl. 35, upper). Within it was a scrap of another basket
or mat, twilled over-2-under-2, that may have been a patch. Our laboratory
photograph (pl. 41, A) is of the exterior in order to show the
manner in which the weaving elements, having been secured to the
osier ring as usual by twinning, were plaited to form an attractive
selvage. This latter was woven snugly against the vessel wall and
without any attachment other than that at the rim.
Thus, of four specimens identifiable as fragments of ring baskets,
two were woven of yucca-leaf strips and two of rush. All four were
plaited over-3-under-3. Two fragments of burned clay flooring from
Room 260 bear the imprint of basketry twilled in the same interval
(U.S.N.M. No. 335361).
We have five additional scraps, but I am uncertain whether they
represent baskets or matting. All are twill-plaited over-2-under-2; all
appear to be split rush leaf. Coarsest of the lot, with seven strips per
No. 1406). I should have classed it as matting except that the strip
ends were bent back over a string, bound there by twined cords or
shreds of rush, and trimmed to leave a rough, 1-inch fringe. I have
never seen matting with that kind of selvage, and I never saw a Pueblo
plaited basket with flexible rim.
Bits of a dirt-encrusted fabric (U.S.N.M. No. 335315, orig. No.
1873) were found among the scattered human bones in Room 330.
My chief reason for thinking it might be from a small mat is that the
piece had been folded. On the other hand, it seems too fine and
closely woven, with 14 strips to the inch, for anything but a choice
basket.
Two comparable pieces, both folded, were recovered in Room 326
(No. 335313). One is twilled 10 to the inch; the other, 16. The
second has a bootlike appearance which I now believe to be purely
fortuitous. Within its folds lie vegetal remains of some sort, too
decayed for positive identification.
Similar fibrous material gives another fragmentary specimen a thickness
approximating 1 inch; its irregular edge, however, without padding,
is only the doubled fabric (pl. 41, B). Except for this doubled
portion, the perimeter has rotted through. The concavity on the upper
surface is due to the fact that this specimen last served as a headrest,
or pillow, for Burial 5, Room 326. On the opposite side the woven
elements are drawn together as though forming the constricted orifice
of a bag. Made of rush strips twilled over-2-under-2 and 10 to the
inch, the pillow lay beneath a mat of rushes on which the body rested.
Our attempts to preserve these and other basketry remains were
less successful than we had hoped. In every instance the specimens
were deeply buried when found, under at least 8 feet of blown sand,
debris of occupation, and fallen masonry. In almost every instance
the fabrics were damp and the heat of a midsummer sun caused contraction
and fragmentation in one or two minutes. We tried to control
evaporation by piling on damp sand and then brushing it away gradually
but without avail. Our last alternative was to go over the exposed
surface of the specimen as quickly as possible with a dustbrush and
then apply diluted ambroid or melted paraffin, as the individual case
warranted. With some of the cylindrical baskets we did not delay
long enough even to remove the earthy contents.
Several years later, when opportunity came to study these particular
remains, I first realized the difficulties in store. Without soaking in
acetone and vigorous scrubbing, which they could not withstand, it
was impossible to free the specimens from sand grains firmly cemented
in condition to be soaked. We learned that the most satisfactory means
of removing surplus paraffin is heat, but for its application and control
no equipment was available except a one-plate, open gas stove, a square
of wire mesh, and a blotter. As the blotter absorbed the melting wax
the basketry tended to flatten out and lose whatever had been retained
of the original shape. In several cases, much to my surprise, specimens
that had looked reasonably substantial in the field proved to be nothing
more than shells of decayed vegetal matter when the supporting paraffin
was removed. It was the ingenuity and skill of W. H. Egberts,
then chief preparator in the department of anthropology, U. S. National
Museum, that preserved for study purposes many of the remains
herein considered.
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