Basket

Edible mushrooms in a basket.

Basket of Plums, painting by Pierre Dupuis.

A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers, and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are generally woven by hand. Some baskets are fitted with a lid, while others are left open on top.

Uses

On the left side are live fowl baskets. Directly to the right are flat baskets used for selling shrimp and small fish in Haikou City, Hainan Province, People's Republic of China

Baskets serve utilitarian as well as aesthetic purposes. Some baskets are ceremonial, that is religious, in nature. While baskets are usually used for harvesting, storage and transport, specialized baskets are used as sieves for a variety of purposes, including cooking, processing seeds or grains, tossing gambling pieces, rattles, fans, fish traps, and laundry.

History

Prior to the invention of woven baskets, people used tree bark to make simple containers. These containers could be used to transport gathered food and other items, but crumbled after only a few uses. Weaving strips of bark or other plant material to support the bark containers would be the next step, followed by entirely woven baskets. The last innovation appears to be baskets so tightly woven that they could hold water.

Depending on soil conditions, baskets may or may not be preserved in the archaeological record. Sites in the Middle East show that weaving techniques were used to make mats and possibly also baskets, circa 8000 BCE. Twined baskets date back to 7000 in Oasisamerica. Baskets made with interwoven techniques were common at 3000 BCE.

Baskets were originally designed as multi-purpose vessels to carry and store materials and to keep stray items about the home. The plant life available in a region affects the choice of material, which in turn influences the weaving technique. Rattan and other members of the Arecaceae or palm tree family, the thin grasses of temperate regions, and broad-leaved tropical bromeliads each require a different method of twisting and braiding to be made into a basket. The practice of basket making has evolved into an art. Artistic freedom allows basket makers a wide choice of colors, materials, sizes, patterns, and details.

The carrying of a basket on the head, particularly by rural women, has long been practiced. Representations of this in Ancient Greek art are called Canephorae.

Figurative and literary usage

The phrase "to hell in a handbasket" means to deteriorate rapidly. The origin of this use is unclear. "Basket" is sometimes used as an adjective for a person who is born out of wedlock. This occurs more commonly in British English. "Basket" also refers to a bulge in a man's crotch. The word “basket” is frequently used in the colloquial “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” In this sense, the basket is a metaphor for a chance at success.

Materials

Palm baskets (front) and wicker baskets (back)

Basket makers use a wide range of materials:

• Wicker (traditionally made of willow, rattan, reed, and bamboo)
• Straw
• Plastic
• Metal
• Bamboo
• Palm
• Carbon fiber

Image gallery

• Different baskets
• 
  President Lyndon B. Johnson with a basket of dogs.
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  Hand Crafted Woven Basket hanging on the wall.
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  Four different styles of baskets
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  Baskets - Danforth Museum - Framingham, MA
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  A set of traditional hand-woven native Indian Nuu-chah-nulth peoples' baskets (Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada)
• 
  Baskets for sale in the island of La Réunion, east of Madagascar
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  Straw hats and baskets for sale at the Luangwa turn-off on Great East road, Zambia.
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  Storage basket, Pomo people, (indigenous people of California), Honolulu Museum of Art
• 
  Trinket Basket, Makah people, Northwest Washington, late 19th to early 20th century, twined and plaited bear grass, sedge, cedar bark
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  Nootka Makah baskets - Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
• 
  Ethiopian woman gathering coffee beans in a basket
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  Seri Indian pot-shaped basket (Northern Mexico)
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  Bending vines for basket construction - Pohnpei
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  Inupiat basket of whale baleen with a walrus ivory finial, Barrow, Alaska
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  Black ash baby basket by Odawa-Ojibwe Kelly Church, Michigan
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  Yurok baskets from Redwood National Park area, California
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  Traditional western Hubei baskets (China)
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  Sweetgrass basket made by the Gullah culture of coastal Georgia or South Carolina, USA
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  Backpack made of birch bark.
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  Egyptian basket preserved in the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer, Vilanova i la Geltrú
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  A woman carrying a basket full of vegetables on her head in K R Market, Bangalore, India
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  Contemporary bamboo baskets of Bangladesh.
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  A basket used in Punjab, India
• 
  Ifugao people baskets in a museum

See also

• Basket weaving
• Canephorae
• Weaving
• Native American basketry
• Native American basket weavers
• Baleen basketry
• Fruits Basket Japanese Manga series

Sources

• Zepeda, Ofelia (1995). Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert. ISBN 0-8165-1541-7.

External links

• "Basket" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). 1911.
• Baskets, The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Baskets at the University of Michigan Museum of Art
• Baskets at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Exhibition: "A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Study Lab: "Entwined with Life: Native American Basketry" at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture