Salinan Decorated Basket

3D Model

PGMNH 4/1641 Like most surviving Salinan baskets, this is a “fancy basket,” not made for everyday use. Its black zigzags and narrow diagonal patterns are typical Salinan designs. Of all known Salinan baskets, it is perhaps the most elaborately beaded. The pendants of glass trade beads include three colors, whereas most early baskets from other cultures used just one bead color. The decorations help place the basket’s age as being probably from the last half of the 1800s. The basket is made of deergrass (warps), sedge roots (weft), and bulrush root (black designs). It is coiled with a weft weave of a simple non-interlocking stitch. A mixture of weft coiling splices is present; the very small and tight splices are characteristically Salinan. The black decorations were made by changing the weft materials between sedge and bulrush. The pendants of beads were strung on commercial string and were woven in as the basket was made.