Algonquin
Box
Anissinapek (Algonquin), 1919
Scroll
Algonquin
Box
Anissinapek (Algonquin), 1919
Physical Qualities
Birch bark, spruce root, 6 1/2 x 4 15/16 x 7 3/4 in. (16.5 x 12.5 x 19.7 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Irene Gulck and Bequest of Florence Reese Winslow, by exchange with the Denver Art Museum
Object Number
1953.4.26
Indigenous artists have been weaving baskets and crafting boxes for millennia. The array of objects seen here come from disparate regions of North America, but they all have one trait in common: they were made from materials that shared their homeland with the Native artists who crafted them.
Artists utilized botanical knowledge passed down through generations to craft works like these. In North Carolina, Cherokee artist Emma Jackson Garrett collected rivercane and created natural dyes from bloodroot and walnut to make her baskets. To craft this box, an Algonquin artist in the Northeast carefully peeled bark from a paper birch so as to not harm the tree. The black material used to generate the squash-blossom design frequently found on Akimel O’odham baskets is derived from devil’s claw, a pronged seed pod that an artist must soak, carefully split, then bury in wet soil to maintain its pliability. An Unangax̂ artist transformed wild rye (beach) grass into a basket so finely and tightly woven that it looks like linen.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by exchange, 1953; Denver Art Museum.