[Illustration: Root Runner Basket]
The Cherokee of Oklahoma used buckbrush (Symphoricarpos Orbiculatus) in
making fine root runner baskets and it appears after careful study and
extensive inquiry, that this type of basket weaving may have originated
among the Indians of Oklahoma. This conclusion is based on many years of
collecting baskets from Cherokee Indians in every part of the old
Cherokee nation. Interviews with older basket-making women were held
through interpreters and it was clearly established that basket making
from honeysuckle was not known to them or to their mothers or
grandmothers who had lived in Georgia and North Carolina before their
removal in 1938 to Oklahoma. The only type of weaving known to them
before coming to Oklahoma was the cane and oak-splint weaving. From such
interviews these facts could be traced back to as early as 1850. They
were certain that the earliest baskets made by their grandparents were
out of buckbrush and oak splints; no cane or honeysuckle was used in the
northern part of the Cherokee nation.
In the Spavinaw hills country of the northern part of the Cherokee
nation the Indians used only buckbrush runners as cane does not grow in
this section. In the southern part of the nation, in the vicinity of
Gore and Weber Falls, cane grows and is used almost exclusively in
basket weaving. In the locality of Tahlequah and Stillwell both cane and
buckbrush weaving is done. The Cherokee of this region make both a
double and single wicker weave basket of buckbrush runners and no
foundation is used in either type although each is strong and
serviceable. All of their fine root runner baskets (buckbrush) are a
wicker type of weave of unexcelled technique. The double weave basket
made by Lucy Mouse (shown in the Oklahoma example) is a splendid
specimen of fine weaving—a strong durable basket. The dye used in this
basket is walnut stain from boiled walnut hulls.
The buckbrush runners are pulled in the fall of the years and after
drying two or three weeks are boiled to remove the bark. The fibers
remain flexible enough for weaving all winter which is the basket
weaving season.
The shapes were formerly market baskets, fruit trays, egg baskets and
storage baskets, some of which were used by them as long as fifty years
ago. Twenty-five years ago vegetable dyes were used for coloring but
today commercial dyes are largely used; the baskets are made, as a rule,
for sale, and show considerable white influence.
—Clark Field