Basket: rivercane, storage

Basket: rivercane, storage

Basket making

Cherokee baskets

Handicraft

This double weave storage basket was made by Eva Wolfe, a Cherokee basket weaver who received national honors later in her life. Storage baskets such as these were used to store foodstuffs and household goods. The double weave makes for a tight basket; some double weave baskets can even hold water. The double weave is a complex traditional technique mastered by only the most accomplished Cherokee basket weavers. This basket was woven from rivercane that was dyed using walnut for the brown color and bloodroot for the orange diagonal bands running across the outside of the basket. Rivercane, walnut, and bloodroot are native plants of the region. The pattern in this basket appears to be a unique adaptation of the Flowing Water (or Flowing River) design, with intersecting diagonals running along the inside and outside of the basket. Eva Queen Wolfe (1922-2004) lived in the Soco community on the Qualla Indian Boundary. She learned to make baskets from her mother and later learned the complex double weave technique. The date of this basket is not known.

Wolfe, Eva Queen, 1922-2004

Artifact Collection

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

unknown

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

jpg;

photographs

StillImage

15400

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/15400

2008-07-31

All rights reserved. For permissions and use, contact Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc., Cherokee, NC 28719;

Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

16" x 11" x 11"(dimension)

Craft Revival