Illustration: Selection of Pima basketry.
The Pima, or to be more accurate, the Akimel O'odham, live on both sides of the border between Arizona and Mexico, with many living alongside the banks of the Gila River. The Pima are closely related to a number of peoples throughout the region including the Tohono O'odham.
The Pima have always depended largely on a patchwork of traditional farming, hunting and gathering, though trade has also played an important role in the culture. Part of that trade was in the Pima's own craft skills, in particular basketry and woven textiles.
Illustration: Decorated Pima basket.
The basketry of the Pima is considered to be of an extremely high and defined status by collectors. The basketry produced by the Pima over a long period has such definite individual characteristics that it is said that often collectors can distinguish individual makers by the tell tale style of both weave and decorative pattern work. The finished pieces were usually so fine that older pieces can be extremely fragile. However, this very fineness has produced such extraordinary basketry that it is considered by many collectors to be some of the finest produced in the region.
Willow and indigenous and easily available native grasses that grew along the banks of the Gila River were used to produce the coiled basketry. Although the decorative pattern work looks timeless, it can very often be the result of feeding the European American market with work that suited their own aesthetic, so at least a certain proportion of the decoration could have been manipulated to appear 'authentic' and 'Indian' at least to untrained European eyes. After all, much of the basketry produced over long periods by indigenous peoples across North America, dealt with the practicalities of everyday domestic necessity that the craft provided, rather than that of the aesthetics of an ornament to be admired. This does not mean that decoration was an anathema to indigenous basketry weavers, but the tastes of the dominant American European culture has always muddied the origin of decorative indigenous crafts.
Illustration: Decorated Pima basket.
Basketry work amongst the Pima, as in much of North America, was the work of women. Grandmothers traditionally taught their granddaughters the often difficult and complex skill of coiled basketry. This skills base was then passed down from generation to generation in order to perpetuate the craft and the integral part it played in the life of the culture. Some of the last Pima names to be associated with the art of basketry are Marcela Brown, Ruth Giff, Madeline Lewis and Frances Peters.
Today, much of the basketry skills practised for countless generations has faded away. Because of irrigation dams further up stream from the land set aside for the Pima, rivers have dried up and the localised vegetation needed for this specialised form of basketry has faded away with the river. This has left an ageless craft skill along with the future generations that were to be the custodians of that skill, abandoned.
Illustration: Pima dwellings 1900.
There are a number of online sites where Pima basketry can be both bought and viewed, the links are given below, along with a couple of links to Pima community websites and interesting books on Pima basketry to be found at Amazon.com
Further reading links:
Medicineman Gallery
East West Basketry
Gila River Indian Community
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Indian Basket Weaving: How to Weave Pomo, Yurok, Pima, and Navajo Baskets
The Pima and His Basket
Basketry of the Papago and Pima Indians (A Rio Grande Classic, 86)
AKIMEL O'ODHAM
The Tohono O'odham and Pimeria Alta (Images of America: Arizona)
Neither Wolf Nor Dog: American Indians, Environment, and Agrarian Change
Big Sycamore Stands Alone: The Western Apaches, Aravaipa, and the Struggle for Place (New Directions in Native American Studies)
Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture, and Story
The Desert Southwest: Four Thousand Years of Life and Art
Indian Basketry Artists of the Southwest: Deep Roots, New Growth (Contemporary Indian Artists)
A History of the Southwest: The Land and Its People
