Vintage Tohono O'odham Basket

Tohono O'odham (Papago) Basket, coiled grass foundation, beautiful patina . . . A warm mellow honey color that testifies to its age and use.  The patina is more pronounced on the exterior which would indicate it most likely would have had more handling. Diameter is 12"at the top, tapering down to 4-1/2"at the bottom and 4-1/2" high. A sturdy basket in very fine condition. Circa: 1900-20, perhaps earlier.

Native American Indian Basketry has taught us to appreciate the beauty of primitive weaving, and furnishes the most striking illustration of the wonderful patience, fertility of resource and inventive genius of the woman in using nature's materials, roots, grasses, twigs, vines, brushes, palm fibers, shells , and feathers, shaping them into useful and beautiful forms. 

Baskets were the Native American Indian women's poems, the making manifest her ideals and longings for the beautiful. We are convinced from personal observation that no one, after thoughtfully examining or doing the work, can help regarding of a race now almost extinct, can turn away without a new interest and respect for the Native American Indians and their baskets.