Coiled Cedar-Root Basketry

The 1928 Bureau of American Ethnology monograph on the subject, based largely on James Teit's field notes, opens: "All of the interior Salish tribes of British Columbia once made coiled basketry of cedar or spruce root, the Upper and Lower Lillooet, the Upper and Lower Thompson, the Shuswap, the Lake (of the Okanagon group), and the Okanagon proper." It concluded that "the interior Salish were the leading manufacturers of coiled and imbricated basketry in the northwest" and that "the direction of diffusion of the art in British Columbia was from the interior toward the sea."

Cedar root was the essential material: "The cedar tree furnishes the greater part of the material used in the manufacture of baskets. Its roots are especially sought for this purpose, while the trunk and twigs are seldom employed." The people knew "that cedar resists wet and rot longer than any other fiber in that region," and the authors noted that "many baskets show surprisingly little wear, even after nearly half a century of constant use."

Gathering was skilled, seasonal work done mostly by women: "The best time for collecting roots for splints is in June," when roots "are more easily pulled and split... in the early summer when the sap is running." "Cedar trees are selected which have long trailing roots of good grain. The most desirable ones belong to old large trees because of the superior toughness of their fiber." Roots were dug with digging sticks, carried home in bundles, and kept damp so they would not become brittle. "Sometimes a woman will buy a sufficient supply to last a year, during which period she may complete from 2 to 10 baskets of various sizes in her spare hours," while a few older expert women were "professionals, devoting almost their entire time to producing objects for sale."

Franz Boas, visiting the Shuswap in 1890, wrote: "Their household goods are made principally of basketry, in which they excel... The roots are dyed black with an extract of fern root, and red with an extract of alder-bark or with oxide of iron. Very beautiful patterns are made in these three colours. Baskets are used for storing, carrying, and cooking provisions." He also recorded the cooking method: "Food was boiled in baskets, which were filled with water that was made to boil by throwing red-hot stones into it."

Baskets moved along trade routes across the Plateau. The 1928 study records that at "Kamloops, which seems to have been the farthest point for trade toward the southeast," Thompson baskets "traveled there in greater numbers, but the majority were of Shuswap manufacture." It also notes that by the 1920s "the Lake and Okanagon as well as the Shuswap make almost no coiled baskets at the present time, but the Lillooet and Thompson probably manufacture as many now as they ever did," a record of how quickly the tradition was being disrupted in the early twentieth century.