Basketry, twined, black and yellow designs. Plain twined. Willow shoot warps, willow root weft with overlay of beargrass leaf, maidenhair fern (black), and porcupine quills dyed yellow with lichens. Label "Klamath River Tribes att.". Per Ralph Shanks: Woman’s twined basket hat. Crossed warp starting knot. The warp material is probably hazel. The background wefts are conifer root. The weft overlay is beargrass, yellow dyed porcupine quill, and maidenhair fern. Starting at the starting knot is 1/2 inch of three strand twining, followed by 1 inch of plain twining. After that, there is one weft row of three strand twining. Plain twining continues to 1/2 inch below the rim where there is another weft row of three strand twining. After that plain twining continues to the end of the rim, which is trimmed. The background overlay is beargrass. Starting at the starting knot there is an inch of conifer root with no overlay. After that is a horizontal band of maidenhair fern and porcupine quill triangles. After that is a band of maiden hair fern and a band of porcupine quill. The main design band is comprised of triangles and a horizontal porcupine quill stepped pattern. At the rim there is another band of porcupine quill and maidenhair fern followed by truncated maidenhair triangles with porcupine designs on the interior. The basket has an up to the right slant of weft twist. The workface is on the exterior, with a rightward work direction. The overlay only is on the exterior. The basket is from Northwestern California.
Donor:
Stuart C. Way
Collection place:
Northwestern California
Verbatim coll. place:
California; Northern California; Northwestern California
Culture or time period:
Klamath River Tribes
Maker or artist:
Queen Star James
Collector:
Stuart C. Way
Collection date:
unknown
Materials:
Willow shoots
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Basketry (object genre), Caps (headgear), and Twined weaving
Function:
2.2 Personal Adornments and Accoutrements
Accession date:
1967
Context of use:
Fancy dress woman's cap.
Department:
Native California (archaeology and ethnology)
Dimensions:
diameter 18.5 centimeters and height 9 centimeters
Comment:
Per Ron Johnson and Colleen Kelley Marks exhibit catalog "Quillwork in Native American Baskets from Northwest California" - Attributed to Queen James, Yurok. Woman's ceremonial cap before 1967, Wax poo design. This woman's ceremonial cap may be the finest in the Phoebe Hearst Collection. It is perfectly balanced, although the wax poo design is not timid and it encircles the cap. The attribution of this cap to Queen James is based on the swallowtail design after the start, the proportions of the triangles in the main design are like her use of the suspender design, and the weaving is very fine and even. She has also used a row of smaller quills in the separation between the three registers of the cap, a refinement lesser weavers would not include. The dye appears to be staghorn lichen, which is well preserved. The one observation that places the attribution in doubt is the bear grass triangle point down, which is not counted correctly and begins with 26 rather than 25 stitches and has arrow of four stitches before the last correct single stitch.