Traditional Diné Ceremonial Basketry Tray [SOLD]

Navajo baskets or Ts’aa’ have a number of uses. They are used ceremonially to hold prayer sticks and medicine bundles, because it is taboo for ritual objects to touch the ground. They are important for Kinaalda’ ceremonies, the coming of age ceremony for young women at puberty, where they are used to hold yucca suds for ritual baths and hair washing of the young woman. They are used in wedding ceremonies to hold corn pollen and food.  This basket does not appear to have been used. It appears to be relatively new.

The designs in these Native American Baskets have significance and depending on the interpretation can symbolize the creation myth, life’s journeys or be a map of the Navajo cosmos. The simplest interpretation is that the white center is the emergence area, or area of birth. The black coils represent clouds or four sacred mountains. The red band is the sun’s rays which bring life. There is always a line from the center of the basket to the outer rim, a path from the center for the Spirit to come and go. The pathway meets at the outer edge where the weaver has stopped coiling.

Condition: this Traditional Diné Ceremonial Basketry Tray appears to be relatively new and in very good condition.

Provenance: this Traditional Diné Ceremonial Basketry Tray is from a family in Santa Fe

Recommended Reading:  Navajo Ceremonial Baskets: Sacred Symbols, Sacred Space by Georgiana Kennedy Simpson

Relative Links: Navajo, Native American Baskets