Wedding Basket
Technique: coiled; 3 rod; counterclockwise. Materials: warp - rods of sumac; weft - stems of peeled sumac. Design elements: circular design in red and black. Black weft is Devil's Claw. Red weft is dyed sumac. There is a muslin piece in center of basket. Rim is finished in herringbone stich.
- Object: Wedding Basket
- Artist: Unknown
- Circa: Early 1900s
- Dimensions: H: 2.5"; Diam: 13 3/4"
- Culture Area: Southwest
- Cultural Group: Navajo / Diné
- Cultural Context: Navajo wedding basket design. Center of basket is the navel of the world or the navel of basket owner/carrier, sometimes the hole of the center is plugged with a corn cop or in this case a piece of cloth, so that the cornmeal doesn't fall out during the ceremony. Baskets with these designs are used in many different ceremonies, often holding cornflower in four piles of the four directions or used upside-down as drums. Important in wedding ceremony. The couple will eat together corn mush from the basket. Meaning of the design: The dark design represents rain clouds, the red rows represent sun rays. The gap in the design represent the way out.
- Donor: Margery Cahn
- Catalog #: 96.001