With the Pala Basket Makers.
The art instincts of primitive people naturally were exceedingly
limited in expression. Their ignorance of tools not only restricted
their opportunities for the development of handicraft ability, but
also deprived them of many materials they otherwise might have used.
Hence whenever an outlet was discovered for their artistic tendencies
they were impelled to focus upon it in a remarkable degree. With few
tools, limited scope of materials, and next to no incitement to higher
endeavor as the result of contact with other peoples, they yet
developed several arts to a higher degree than has ever yet been
attained by the white race. One of the chief of these artistic
industries was the making of baskets.
Look at one of these exquisite pieces of aboriginal workmanship and
you will be astonished at the perfection of its form, its marvelous
symmetry, the evenness of its weave, the suitability of the material
of which it is made, its remarkable adaptability to the use for which
it is intended, the rare and delicate harmoniousness of its colors,
and the artistic conception of its design. These qualities all
presuppose pure aboriginal work, for directly the Indian begins to
yield to the dictation of the superior (!) race, she proceeds to make
baskets of hideous and inartistic shape, abominable combinations of
color, and generally senseless designs.
Let us watch these basket-makers at work, as we find them at Pala
today. The weaver must first secure the materials. For the filling of
the inner coil she gathers a quantity of a wild grass, or broom corn,
the stems of which perfectly fulfil the purpose. The wrapping splints
are made of three or four products of the vegetable kingdom. The white
splints are secured from willows which are peeled and then split and
torn apart so as to make the desired size. The thinness and pliability
of the splint is determined by scraping off as much as is needed of
the inside. A black splint is found in the cuticle of the martynia, or
cat's claw, which grows profusely on the hill-sides. Sometimes,
however, the white willow splints are soaked in hot sulphur water for
several days, and this blackens them. This water is secured from one
of the hot springs which are found all over Southern California. The
rare and delicate shades of brown in the splints used by the Pala
Indians are gained from the root of the tule. These roots are dug out
of the mud of marshy places and vary in shade, from the most delicate
creamy-brown to the deepest chestnut. Carefully introduced into a
basket they make harmonies in color that fairly thrill the senses with
delight. Now and again an added note of color is found in the red of
the red-bud, which, when gathered at the proper time, gives a sturdy
red, not too vivid or brilliant, but that harmonizes perfectly with
the white, black and brown. As a rule these are the only colors used
by the older and more artistic of the Pala weavers. Now and again, a
smart youngster, trained at the white man's school, will come back
with corrupted ideas of color value, and will flippantly make
gorgeously colored splints with a few packages of the aniline dyes
that, to the older weavers, are simply accursed. But even the most
foolish and least discerning of the white purchasers of baskets made
of these degraded colors cannot fail, in time, to learn how hideous
they are when compared with the natural, normal and artistic work of
the more conservative of the weavers.
With her materials duly prepared the weaver is now ready to go to
work. What drawing has she to represent the shape of her basket; what
complicated plan of the design she intends to incorporate in it? How
much thought has she given to these two important details? Where does
she get them from? What art books does she consult? She cannot go down
to the art or department store and purchase Design No. 48b, or 219f,
and her religion, if she be a _good_ woman (that is, good from the
Indian, not the white man or Christian standpoint), will not allow her
to copy either one of her own or another weaver's form or design. She,
therefore, is left to the one resort of the true artist. She must
create her work from Nature, out of her own observations and
reflections. Thus patterning after Nature the shapes of her baskets
are always perfect, always uncriticizable. There is nothing fantastic,
wild, or crazy about them, as we often find in the _original
creations_ of the white race. They are patterned after the Master
Artist's work, and therefore are beyond criticism.
But who can tell the hours of patient and careful observation, the
thought, the reflection, put upon these shapes and designs. The busy
little brain behind those dark-brown eyes; the creative imagination
that sees, that vizualizes _in the mind_ and can judge of its
appearance when objectified, must be developed to a high degree to
permit the use of such intricate, complicated and complex designs as
are often found. There are no drawings made, no pencil and paper used,
not even a sketch in the sand as some guessers would have the
credulous believe. Everything is seen and worked out _mentally_, and
with nothing but the mental image before her, the artist goes to work.
Seated in as easy a posture as she can find out-of-doors or in, her
splints around her in vessels of water (the water for keeping them
pliant), and an adequate supply of the broom-corn, or grass-stem,
filling at hand, she rapidly makes the coiled button that is the
center, the starting point of her basket. Her awl is the thigh-bone of
a rabbit, unless she has yielded so far to the pressure of
civilization as to use a steel awl secured at the trader's store for
the purpose. Stitch by stitch the coil grows, each one sewed, by
making a hole with the awl through the coil already made, to that
coil. When the time comes for the introduction of the colored splint,
she works on as certainly, surely and deftly as before. There is no
hesitation. All is mapped out, the stitches counted, long before, and
though to the outsider there is no possible resemblance discernible
between what she is doing with anything known in the heavens above,
the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, the aboriginal
weaver goes on with perfect confidence, seeing clearly the completed
and artistic product of her brain and fingers.
[Illustration: One of the Portable Houses bought by the U. S. Indian
Department. The rear house was erected by the Indians themselves,
and is the home of Senora Salvadora Valenzuela and her daughters.]
[Illustration: Two Pala Indian Maidens.]
[Illustration: Pala Boys at Work on the Farm.]
And how wonderfully those fingers handle the splints. No white woman
has ever surpassed, in digital dexterity, these native Indians. Do you
wonder? Watch this weaver day after day as her basket grows. A week,
two, three, a month, two, three months pass by, and the basket is not
yet finished. Time as well as creative skill and digital dexterity are
required to make a basket, and it is no uncommon thing to find three,
four and even five or six months consumed before the basket is done,
and the weaver's heart is secretly rejoiced by the beauty of the work.
Is it surprising that the Indian often refuses to show, even when she
knows she can make a sale, the latest product of her skill? The work
is the joy of her heart; she has met the true test of the artist--she
loves her work and, therefore, joys in it--how can she sell it? So
when you ask her if she has a basket to sell she shakes her head, and
when, days or weeks later, pressed by a real or fancied necessity, she
brings it out and offers it for sale, you inwardly comment--perhaps
openly--upon the untruthfulness of the Indian, when, in reality, she
meant to the full her negative as to whether she had a basket to
_sell_.
There are many skilful and accomplished basket weavers at Pala, who
genuinely love their work. They are preserving for a prejudiced
portion of the white race, proofs of an artistic skill possessed for
centuries by this despised aboriginal race, and, at the same time,
give delight, pleasure, joy and kindlier feelings to those of the
white race who feel there is a fundamental truth enunciated in the
doctrines of the universal Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of
Man.