The owner has requested that we reduce the price on this item so the estate can be closed. There are a total of 4 baskets remaining from this estate. The baskets are:
# C2533S
# C2533Ai
# C2533AK
# C2533AL
All four of these items are now priced well below their market value.


The Akimel O’odham River People (Pima) were major basket makers in the late 19^th century, primarily making them for their own use. At the turn of the following century, basket weaving was being practiced in every home. This continued into the early 20^th century, at which time Southwest Indian basketry became a collectible commodity. The problem was that the collectors and dealers only paid $1.00 to $3.00 for a basket. The women soon realized that it was not practical to spend weeks making a basket when they could pick cotton and earn $2.00 a day. By the 1920s, basket weaving all but disappeared. By 1960, they were not even making baskets for their own use. They had, by then, substituted commercially made pots and pans for utilitarian use.

This basket has an exceptionally fine weave and is in very good structural condition. There are no missing stitches either in the body or the rim. The design has faded from its original darker color, but the fading is evenly distributed so that the overall appearance is similar. The only way to determine the degree of fading is to look at the color of the martynia on the underside of the basket that has been protected from light.

Provenance: From the estate of a prominent medical doctor who spent the later part of her career with the Indian Health Service in the Southwest.

Recommended Reading: Indian Baskets: Now with a Guide to Values of Indian Baskets, by Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh and William A. Turnbaugh. (The book is available from Adobe Gallery).