Reading Pictorial Imagery
Sullivan, May Kellogg
1903 A'l(/oman V/ha Vent to Alaskø. Boston, MAr J. T
in Washoe Basketry
Ea¡le.
'Wardman, George
1884 A Tr;Þ ro Alasla. Boston, MA; Lee and Shepard.
Wickersham, James
1902 Eskimo Pictu¡es and Maps: made by E-too-ach-in-
na (presented to James Vicke¡sham at Nome by his son Marvin Cohodas
... on April 4, 1902) Unpublished manuscript, Alaska
Hisro¡ical Library, Juneau, AK
A photograph from about 1915 shows \Øashoe basket
weaver Maggie Mayo James weaving a coiled willow
basket, attempting to attract tou¡ists at Lake Tahoe to
purchase her basketry and beadwo¡k curios (Fig. 1).1
Her potential customers included not only summer vaca'
tiore¡s visiting lakeside resorts, but also weakhy women
living in summe¡ mansiots surrounding the lake who
built large collections ofbasketry and other curios. \(trile
anth¡opologists stopped by to acquire collections for mu-
seum employers, at the same time soliciting information
on indigenous basketry techniques and functions, deal-
ers would pass through to collect wares for galleries in
metropolitan centers. \fhether perceiving thei¡ inte¡est
uaesthetic,n "touristic," or "scientiffc," purchase¡s be-
as
lievedthey were witnessing the demise of Native
American distinctiveness and chose cu¡ios to serve as
¡elics of ao un¡ecoverable past (Phillips 1998: 144),
Different g¡oups of buyers would make very differ-
ent purchases from among the array of objects dis-
played here, and there are some objects that none would
purchase. The crate, bucket, and pan for water used to
keep basket¡y materials flexible would not be purchased
as they were of non-Native manufactu¡e and non-
Natives used them for relatively similar purposes as did
Natives. The same discrimination applied to Maggie
Ma¡vrn Cohodas received his doctorate in art histo¡y ftom Colum-
bia Universiry in 1974 and has been teaching in the Department of
Fine Arts at rhe University of B¡itish Col¡mbia since 19?ó. An accom-
plished basket weaver himse[ Cohodas pursues resea¡ch both in Na-
tive A¡neri.an curio basker weaving ând in arts ol the an.ient Maya.
Author'r addres': Departmenr oi Fine Arts, Universirv ol Brirish
Lorumbia, 6i3Ì Memorial Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T lZ2.
I A slightly earlier photog¡aph ofMaggieJames at Lake Tahoe is
perhâps more
rl1rical ;n rhar the photographer has ananged ,everal
baskets purcha.ed from v,riou. weavers around one parLicularly
"liccuresque' çoman (òohodas 1990: fie. 3o). vhile the 1915 exam-
ple is less
staged, it nevertheless contributes to the consùuction of
Lurio-haking Narive
American women as tourirt ¿ttractions in
rò€ûìselves (Phi
ips 1998, .]I-35).
106
James's clothing and the mat on which she sat. Because
anthropological inquiry of the time focused on ¡econ-
st¡uctirg the past rather than describing the present,
even anth¡opologists eschewed such "material culture,"
despite the fact that these objects were actually used or
worn by Native peoples and in some cases essential to
their lifestyle.
Although many tlpes ofcu¡ios were designed specif-
ically for sale and the¡efo¡e lacked a history of indige-
nous use, all classes of buyers were willing to purchase
such objects if they a¡ticulated suffrcient diffe¡ence f¡om
Eu¡o-American society to be useful in constructing the
requisite image of the premodern Native Ame¡ican fo¡
parlor and museum displays. Such curios included the
loom-beaded belts displayed by James, a ¡ecent devel-
opment in the California-Nevada area using materials
manufactured in Europe and techniques imported from
the Plains, After a century of curio production in the
easte¡n United States and Canada, beadwork had come
to be metonymic fo¡ the Native Ame¡ican in popular
thought.
In contrast, the pile of baskets supporting these
belts represents items with the closest yer varied rela-
tion to precortact Native heritage. The meal b¡ush
made of soap-root leaves is perhaps unchanged and
may have once been used. The truncated conical sto¡-
age baskets are partially adapted for sale, displaying
more elaborate deco¡ation to attract buyers, and
woven in the time-saving technique of spaced stitching
to increase the quantity available for sale, In addition
to "discriminatirig' collectors, regular collector/vaca-
tioners, casual tourists, and museum anth¡opologists
or thei¡ âgerts are likely to have purchased such bas-
kets to demonst¡ate indigenous technology, and the
latter might also have acquired samples of basketry
materials such as the willow rods visible on the basket
pile and wooden box,
r07
Fig. I Maggie James at Lake Tahoe, ca. 19i5. Phorographer unknown. Photo courtesy of Sourhwest Muscum (Los Angeles, CA), photo no Fis. Z Basket¡y display in Cohn's Emporiurn Company store, Carson City, Nevada, 1899. Photo courtesy of Nevada Stare Museum (Carson
1618.
City, NV).

The basket on the box aûd that being woven medi- ade after its introduction to !?ashoe basket weavirg,
ate these extremes of long.standing indigenous practice such pictorial imagery had become common, in part
and recent introduction. They combine inc¡eased dec. because it was popular with consumers, \fhile the
o¡ation with a time-consuming weaving technique authenticity of the expanded geometric aüangement
o¡iginâlly designed to produce watertight baskets for was rarely questioned,2 pictorial designs were subject to
cooking, but nov/ aimed at buyers willing to irvest conside¡able debate and ftequent exclusion.
Pictorialism in Californian Basketry Californian basketry has a precedent in the Chumash
offering trays of the early nineteenth century,4 the use
Geometrically a¡ranged and abstracted human figures of European lette¡s and numbers as design morifs did
were long used as basket weaving motifs in California. not become prominent on westetn cu¡io baskets until
By the late nineteenth century they were joined by the the 1890s. Combined into meaningful wo¡ds and
ufloral
an un¡ealistic combination of often
mode,"J phrases including dates, this use of script even p¡eceded

larger sums of money in what was then conside¡ed
"basketry art." The incurving form ofthese two baskets
lacked indigenous precedent o¡ function in \üashoe
weaving but was instead adapted at the end of the
nineteenth centu¡y f¡om other weste¡n basket styles as
a shape appropriate for eyelevel display in the bou¡-
geois home, The term d,egikuþ was applied to the
\Tashoe ve¡sion of this form, which was readily accept-
ed by collectors as well as many anthropologists as the
most valuable and "authentic' t]'pe of \lashoe basketry
product,
However, even these d,egikuþ were subject to vary-
ing discriminations among consumers, One of Maggie
James's d.egil<up is deco¡ated entirely with geometric
ornament, while the othe¡ involves pictorial imagery
including aûows and butte¡flies. By 1915, about a dec-
Debate concerning the meaning and authenticiry of
pictorial imagery on baskets (as on other cu¡io media
such as clothing and pottery) touched broader issues
not only of race and gender but also of nationalism
and economic development at the turn of the century
As the political and economic makeup of No¡rh
America changed, so too changed both the cu¡io
imagery and the ways it was interpreted by different
audiences. The well-documented history of 'Washoe
basket weaving will serve as the primary example for a
discussion of such changing meanings and debates,
into a general context of Califo¡nian basketry for
cu¡io trade.
2. An exception was C. Ha¡t Merriam (1955: 121).
plant and bird images that swept across
quite realistic
No¡th Ame¡ica in the nineteetth century. In Califo¡-
nia and Nevada this more diverse pictorial repertoi¡e
came to include not only birds but also mammals like
lhe horse and deer, reþtiles like the snake and gila mon-
humans distinguished as ¡nale or female, Native or
ster,
non-Native, and architecture including forts and tipis.
Although the combination of words and images on
set 3 The convenrional rerm is "floral sryle,' but in fâct this combi-
natjon of images wâs repre'ented in many diFferent styLe. a. well as
rhe
diffe¡ent techn;oues and media.
{ The most famou. ot these was made in 1822 by Juana Basilia on
commission ftom Californìan governor Sola for presentation to
Mexican soldier losé de la Cruz (Guv 19?6: 3).
5 The inocr;p(ion reâds: Merry Chris¡ma. and Happy New Year,
JÀn. 8, 'as ând Ján. t5,
,ao.
By Mrs. cheney" (see Moser l98or 68).
adoption of the "flo¡al mode" among groups such as
the rVashoe. Appearing simultaneously was another form
of naturalism: the weaving of baskets in the shapes of
such Eu¡o-Ame¡ican household items as the cup-and-
saucer, tea pot, sugar bowl, and pedestal bowl or com-
pote server (\Tashburn 1984). For example, a display of
predominantly \üashoe baskets photographed in 1899
(Fig. 2) rcveals no floral-mode decorations, but does
include a basket (center) with an inscription celebrating
Ch¡istmas and New Year, woven by Mrs. Cheney,5
and a compote-shaped degikup (left) woven by Louisa
Keyser. Such fo¡ms imitating Euro-A¡ne¡ican utensils
lost popularity as Victoriat taste for eclecticism waned
in the early twentieth century, but they were replaced
by others of exaggerated exoticism, such as the minia-
tu¡e c¡adle complete with *Indian Princess" doll.

108 t09
Fig.3 Sarah Mayo coiled basket, ca. 1915 20, with scene
hunting. Privare collection.
\7hile most schola¡ly discussion of pictorialism in
Native Ame¡ican curios has focused on the o¡igin and
spread of the floral mode ftom the no¡theastern
lüoodlands, recent analyses by David Penney (1991)
and Ruth Phillips (1998) reject the passive model of
"Weste¡n influence' conventionally used to explain
Native adoption and diffusion of the flo¡al mode.
These authors instead highlight the active and strate-
gic choices on the part of Native (primarily women)
producers, partially aimed at reproduction of ethnic
identity.
In the Far \(/est, issues of Native agency a¡e com-
plicated by the importance of traders in fostering the
cu¡io t¡ade in several media, including the national
craze for basketry that was the subject of considerable
popular and academic literature between 1890 and
1908. Among the \lashoe, living around Carson City
a¡d Lake Tahoe on the borde¡ a¡ea of Nevada and
California, the primary traders we¡e Amy Cohn and
her husband, Abe Cohn, who dedicated a portiot of
his Emporium Company clothing store to her curio
shop. The Cohns' success depended onthet patrorage
relationship with the innovative lWashoe weave¡
Louisa Keyser, popularly known as Dat So La Lee. In
the 1890s Keyser introduced tÌr.e d.egikuþ shape and
two.colo¡ design, both of which became standard for
lVashoe curio basket weaving within a decade. Keyser's
engagement with picto¡ialism was limited to the use of
imitative shape: At the start of her patronage relation-
ship she added a pedestal to one degil<up to c¡eate a
compote shape (Fig. 2) and about two decades later
wove a series of miniatu¡e cradles to hold dolls. She
110
of¡abbit Fig. 4 Maegie James coiled basket, ca. 1915-20, wirh bird, bu¡¡er.
fly, planc, and flag mocifs. Privâte collection.
never expe¡imented with the floral mode, no¡ did her
siste¡-in-law and closest imitator, Scees Bryant.
Io contrast, most other \íashoe weavers took up
flo¡al-mode pictorial imagery. Sarah Jim Mayo, who
may have introduced this mode to 'Washoe basketry,
also greatly increased the available color palette to
enhance the subtlety of her renderings (Fig. 3).ó Mayo
first int¡oduced tree, ar¡ow, eagle, butterfly, and horse
motifs around 1905 and around 1913 added humans,
the Ame¡ican flag, deer, rabbits, and buildings, ofren
combined into scenes of non-Natives at "fo¡tsn and
na¡¡atives of \lashoe men hunting ¡abbit o¡ deer,
These motifs, along with the radial motif now called
'whirling logs,"7 became the stardard ¡epe¡toire of
'!Øashoe pictorial basketry imagery, especially in
Carson Valley where Mayo lived and where they were
fully taken up by Mayo's stepdaughter, Maggie Mayo
James (Fig. 4). Afte¡ Dick Sam, a relative
1915 Tootsie
of Louisa Keyser's, adopted a limited selection of this
repertoire (tree, eagle, butterfly, whírling logs; Fig, 5)'
and some we¡e taken up as well by other Antelope
Valley weavers including Lena F¡ank Dick. Pictorial
imagery was also adapted to beaded basketry and re'
mained popular among \fashoe weavers into the 19J0s'
Ofparticular signifìcance is the fact that p¡ominent
ó. To the ofbLack mud-dyed bracken fern rooc along with the
use
red redbud branch inrroduced by Louisâ Keyser to Vashoe coiled
basker weauing. Sårâh Mavo added the use olbrown undved bra(k'
willow ln some baskets
en fern ¡oot and dark tan 'sunburned'
Mayo added willow-dyed pink and green.
?. The designation 'whirling logs," dcived from Navajo represen'
radon, has beerì âpptied to replace the term 'swascika,' an assoc'a'
tion thaL postdares rhe objecrs under discus"ioñ.
Fts.5 Group ot baskets bv Tootsie Dick Ser herween Io20 and
ls2l, phorog'aphed rn lo24 bv Edward SheriffCurris in rhe Cohn
Emporiurn Company store, Carson Cirv,
Nevada Afler Curtis
(t926).
weavers like Keyser and Bryant resolutely resisted this
rvidespread adoption ofthe floral mode in \fashoe bas'
ketry. This refusal cannot simply be ascribed to the
closepatronage relationship between Amy Cohn and
Louisa Keyser, even though it facilitated Cohn's st¡at-
egy of increasing the value of Keyser's baskets by pre-
senting her as the most t¡aditional weaver (Cohodas
1992). In contrast, Tootsie Dick, also close to Louisa
Keyser, enthusiastically adopted the pictorial reper-
toire, while Tillie Snooks, who traveled and sold bas-
kets with Sarah Mayo and Maggie James, did not.
The contrasting lifestyles of Louisa Keyser and
Sarah Mayo do appear to have influenced their diverse
choices, but in a manne¡ that belies the conventional
t¡eatment of geometric designs on baskets as 't¡adi-
tional' and pictorial imagery as "accultu¡ated." In com-
parison to other weavers, Keyser actually followed the
most alteredand isolated lifestyle, generally living with
her non-Native patrons in Carson City, her food pro-
vided so that she could devote full-time to weaving, On
the other hand, Mayo, who innovated and inspired
more pictorial designs than any other weaver, not only
wove, traveled, and gathered food with othe¡ Washoe
wo¡nen, but was also a powerÉll and committed mem-
be¡ of the Ca¡son Valley community. He¡ fathe¡ was
8. These captains were nor "chie[.' bur inÈermediaries in deâlings
benveen Washoe and non.N¿tive aurhorities. As d Azevedo and
Kavanagh demonstrate, rheir leadership wa' often contested (14?4).
9 The inscriprion reads: 'Nevada and California. Sarah. I am his
daughter. Captain
Jim, first <hief of the Vashoe Tnbe. This basker
is a speciat curio, 1913."
Fig.6 Sarah Mayo and Captain Pete Mayo with rhe \i/oodrow
lViLson basket. Photograph by Margaretra Dressle¡, 1913-14 Present
locacion of basket unknown.
Captain Jim (Henukeha), a man so respected as a politi-
cal leader or "captain' that the husbands of both Sa¡ah
Mayo and her sister Agnes also became captains.s
Sarah Mayo's most famous political iûterventiot
was weaving a basket in 1913 for presentation to
President rüood¡ow !Øilson and Congress (Fig 6). This
basket was to accompany a petition' signed by Sarah
and Captain Pete Mayo as well as Agnes and Captain
S"rn Pete, requesting funds to purchase homestead
lands for the !Øashoe people, who had been relegated
to the ma¡gins of non-Native settlement. The non-,
Native rvoman with whom Sarah Mayo had the closest
relationship was Margaretta Dressle¡, who wrote out
for Mayo the words she wanted woven into the design
and who documented the finished product in several
photographs.g Involving Ma¡ga¡etta Dtessle¡ in the
project was probably a significant step in the process
that led to the sale by her husband, ¡anche¡ and state
senator rVilliam Dressler, of the tract of land which
became the D¡essle¡ville Colony (Cohodas 1990:
170-1?2). The design on this basket (Cohodas 1979:
figs. XX, 47-49\ alternated portraits of Sarah and of
her father, Captaio Jim (Henukeha) with the image of
an eagle grasping arrows. l7hile eagles and ar¡ows had
been part of Mayo's weaving repertoûe for nearly a
decade, the fo¡m in which she combined them on this
basket also suggests the p¡esidential seal in refelence to
its prospective recipient, Despite the fact that Sarah
Mayo's hybrid combination of text and pictorial
imagery was designed to politically intervete in the
campaign to improve living conditions for Vashoe
111
people and ensure their continuation as a community,
such imagery has often beeû rejected as inauthentic
and "acculturated." Early-twentieth.century defioitiors
of "t¡adition" and disc¡iminations of 'authenticity"
thus ¡epresent nor.Narive impositions that often coun-
tered the inte¡ests of Native peoples.
The meaning of Sarah Mayo's p¡eseûtation basket
has been unde¡stood through pictorial documentation
of its production and textual documentation sur-
rounding land negotiatiors of which it formed a part.
It is far more dif6cult to interpret messages intended by
weave¡s ín other pictorial baskets, whether di¡ected at
membe¡s of their own community or designed as self-
representation to the non.Native consuming sociery.
'tùØhile
most interpretations of basket designs and other
women's p¡oducts have involved imposition of a male
¡itualist and symbolist discourse, an alte¡nate view
might suggest that the combination of symmetrical
order and dynamic vitality in flo¡al.mode deco¡ations
articulated abst¡act rotions of o¡dered well-being.
Such an approach would bette¡ account for \Øashoe
basketry depictions of the Ame¡ican flag, either isolat-
ed (Maggie James) (Fie. 4) o¡ flying from a fort (Sarah
Mayo) (Fig. 7). In comparison, Herbst and Kopp (1993)
suggest that Lakota women producing quill- and bead-
work imbued rhe flag morif with positive associarions
of order, status, and identity that fúrthe¡ed Native pu¡-
poses. I also wonder whethe¡ inscriptions celebrating
holidays or birrhdays, as well as Sarah Mayo's self-hon-
oring message to the President, confo¡med to a gene¡-
al notion of formalized socialiry-a suggesrion perhaps
supported by the fact rhat the majoriry of objects
reproduced in basketry in the 1890s were concerned
with the serving of tea, coffee, and desse¡t.
] do not consider it appropriare to interpret
weave¡s' intents fu¡the¡. Not only is there insufficient
textual o¡ other info¡mation ro offe¡ a more specific
reading, but I also believe that aboriginal peoples
themselves a¡e best situated to p¡ovide the icono-
graphic inte¡pletations that se¡ve thei¡ inte¡ests,
The Floral Mode and the Domestic Sphere
Vhile info¡mation on weavers' intended meadrgs is
slight, there is conside¡able evidence fo¡ the ways in
which non-Native purchase¡s inte¡preted these bas-
kets. Ruth Phillips notes that in rhe Victo¡ian and
Edwa¡dian eras (roughly 1850-1920) that saw the
112
height of the curio trade in Native American
flo¡al deco¡ation on clothing was associated not
o;';
with Native Americans in con¡¡asr to settler societies-
bur also wirh rhe "folk'peoples of Europe in .ontrurt
to cosmopolitan urbanites, and wirh middle class wo¡sn
in cortrast to middle clâss men. She notes tha¡
¡¡¡.,
bourgeois parlor, where many floral-designed curio5
¿, ;:
well as oriental fab¡ics would he displayed, was ¿15¡
deco¡ated with \(/estern-made flo¡al wall p"p"., .nd'
fab¡ics and that the ensemble was poetically likened
to
an Arcadian wilderness serring (Phillips 1998: 22Ð.
Phillips concludes that within the characredsric Vic.
torian symbolic dualism, floral decorations could func-
tion as a sign of the feminized domestic sphere ofmoral
and religious inculcation in contrast to the masculin-
ized public sphere of commerce and government,
My only disagreement with Phillips is thar in p¡ivi.
leging the gendered aspect of this symbolic duality of
public and private, she unde¡values bourgeois rnen,s
wearing of floral patterns in the domestic space
(Phillips 1998: 18/). I would argue that the division
between men wearing drab clothing in the public
sphere and at least sometimes wea¡ing bright floral fab,
rics in the domestic space is signiffcant because it sug-
gests that the Victoriar duality of masculinized public
sphe¡e and fe¡ninized private sphere was a disto¡ted
representation. The private sphere \Mas not the sphere
of women so much as the sphere of men's leisu¡e in
cortrast to the public sphere of their wo¡k, Here men
ruled by a patriarchal law ofpremodern origin, in con-
t¡ast to the ¡epresertational p¡ocedures of the moderr
fraternal social contract in the public sphere.
Essentially, the middle class domestic space ¡ep¡esent-
ed a premodern preserve, hence it is not surprising that
Victo¡ian women decorated it with cu¡ios and clafrs
also associated with the premodern (Cohodas 1997).
This premodern sphere encompassed not only
domestic space with its associated decorations and
practices, but also ethnic const¡uctio¡s of Aboriginal
peoples as well as non-Anglophone immigrants, Both
Native Americans and immigrant labo¡e¡s were at lhis
time associated with socialism and communism, con'
side¡ed the greatest threats to p¡ivate property and
bourgeois p¡eeminence. To counrer this thleat, the
bourgeoisie const¡ucted Native or "folk' "¿p¿þenticiry"
in leisu¡e ¡ather than labor, which transfer¡ed the priv'
ileged forms of interaction from the economic to the
symbolic (the so-called "cultural") sphere, maskinl
with an ideology valued difference'
ejçloitadon .of
f"king the.e associations and cilcumstances
into
I wo,tld argue tha( to the Vicloriân bour-
^ccounr. flottl patterns linking Aboriginal peoples,
o-iri.,
I -,-".t labo¡ers, and bou¡geois women with the
ÍnxuÉr_"-
notion of a domestic sphere were read as signs
svmbolic
desired "domestication" of these groups'
ofrhe
Basket weavers were awa¡e not only that the
objects they made we¡e destined for parlor or museum
but also that they constituted a performatce of
display,
audience, designed in part
€rhnicity for a non-Native
society's view of Native peoples'
to fulfill the domlnant
{natural' state and subordinate position. This does not
mean they represented themselves as belonging to the
pastr but rather that they frequently limited self-repre-
sentadon to images, such the rabbit hunting scene
wover by Sarah Mayo (Fig. 3), that could be construed
assuitably different ftom activities of thei¡ non-Native
patrons. However, Native Americans increasingly sub-
verted the intent of all such stagings of ethnicily not
only by using them ro continually ¡ep¡oduce and asse¡t
ethnic identity in the face of âssimilationist pressures,
but also by turning them to political activism.
The dualistic natu¡e of this reading, articulating con-
rrasts of Native and non-Native, female and male, folk
and modern, etc, is belied by other readings and con-
structiors that articulate bridging relationships be-
tween Native and non-Native bourgeois practices. For
example, Penney's (1991) discussion of Native males
wearing drab clothing for everyday labor versus floral-
decorated clothing fo¡ ethnic performance on special
occasions is paralleled in the bourgeois male's cont¡ast-
ing public and private apparel, while hunting and
camping scenes associated in curio representation with
Native peoples we¡e also valued fo¡ms of leisure-time
recrearion fo¡ non-Narives.
Ptobing such bridging practices further, Phillips
reveals that Native and non-Native women shared not
only the activities of sewing and embroidery but also
rhe use of flo¡al-mode parterns. These strared experi-
ences with textiles were partly the outcóme of seve¡al
centu¡ies of assimilationist practices. From the activity
of the Lorette nuns in the seventeenth centuly to that
of field mat¡ons in the late nineteenth and early tweo.
10. Våshoe gi¡ls taken to ¡he residencial schools were oÍien prohib'
ited from
¡etu¡ning ro rheir families over the summer and instead
were farnÌed out as servants ro non'Native households.
tieth centu¡ies, non-Native women had been teaching
textile p¡actices to Native women and girls as a means
of instilling 'civilization. "
with race and gender in the
Issues of class inte¡sect
framewo¡k of this textile bond between Native and
non-Native women, Literature of the late nineteenth
century analyzed by Phillips (1998: 220-Zl) const¡uct-
ed such needlewo¡k as a sign of bourgeois fernininity,
not femininity in general. Among those excluded f¡om
thís textile bond were servant women who performed
onerous labors in bourgeois homes: Many of these,
especially in the Fa¡ \íest, were Native Ame¡icans. In
contrast to such drudgery, the literature const¡ucted
bourgeois women's textile p¡actice as joyful labor, a pre-
modern A¡cadian const¡uction realized through links
with ¡omanticized views of Native American precapi-
talist lifestyle and filtered through the ideals of the A¡ts
and Crafts Movement (Cohodas 1997: 21-27 702-206)
'
Such discursive bounda¡ies were rarely clear in prac.
tice. For example, !(/ashoe women se¡ved in.non-Native
households as well as weaving cu¡io baskets for sale.
The issue of Native Ame¡icans as laborers ve¡sus
curio-producing artisans was the subject of complex
debates and ove¡t conflict among non-Native institu'
tions, with government assimilation programs attempt-
ing to transform Native peoples into a laboring class
through residential school education,lo and with pri-
vate institutions, including museums, expositions, and
the tourist industry in general, seeking to preserve
them as exotic spectacles. Such strategic bourgeois con-
structions of Native peoples as exotic obiects of leisure
and entertainme¡rt appear also to have atternpted in
cont¡asting ways to control and disempower the large-
ly non-Anglophone laboring classes in an era of union-
izing and national strikes (Cohodas 1997). On the one
hand, articulating an aesthetic bond with Native
American a¡tisans allowed the bou¡geoisie to distance
themselves from laboring classes. On the other hand,
Natives, immigrants, and bourgeois women were
linked through textile practices, particula¡ly floral'
mode designs, as survivo¡s of premodern society,
potentially excluded fro¡n fraternal rights of represen'
tation to subject them instead to patriarchal rule.
Floral-mode decorations entered into these construc'
tiors as signs of the domestic as domesticated, linking
differert g¡oups to natu¡alize ¡acial and gender hierar-
chies, yet also providing the means by which these
hie¡a¡chies we¡e resisted.
113

Fig. 7 Sarah Mayo basket wirh inscriprion, câ. l9l4
Changing Meanings of Pictorial Basketry
for Victo¡ian Consumers
The precise readings of floral-patte¡ned Native curios,
as signs of exotic difference, bourgeois femininity, and
subordination to patriarchal rule, changed as econom-
ic and political conditions alte¡ed and new ideas sur-
faced to compete with old ones. In order to clarify how
different groups might have read and ¡eacted different-
ly to â picto¡ial basket by Sarah Mayo or Maggie
James, some of these changes will be outlined.
During the 1880s and 1890s philanrhropic eastern
women's associations sought to end Native poverty
and homeleòsness through assimilation into Christia¡
agricultural society. They suppo¡ted passage of the
Dawes Allotment Act in 1887 which asked Natives to
repudiate communal ownership of property, associated
by the bourgeoisie with disruptive laboring classes, and
instead embrace private ownership of land. Simultane-
ously, the federal gove¡nmert attempted dest¡uction of
tribal ties through residential schools, justifying their
brutal policies with anthropological theo¡ies of social
evolution. In these same years baskets came to be pro-
duced in quantiry fo¡ sale as cu¡ios in the Far lVesr,
and among these appeared picto¡ial images as well as
other ¡epresentational devices such as script and imita-
tive fo¡ms. The comme¡cial success of these innova.
tions suggests that rhey were being interpreted as evi-
114
dence of the Native,s
from savagery tow¿¡d
tion, as similar achievq¡flça,,
the easrern United States
been judged since
(Phillips 1998: 54).
However, by the time
fornian basketry was
to textual analysis, readings qij
representational devices as
of progress towa¡d civilization::,
were being challenged by prqô-..ì
e¡vationists. Fea¡ing that,¡assirn:.
ilation" would deprive Ams¡. l
cans of thei¡ exotic p¡emode¡n
Other, they decried all signs of
nprogress' in
basketry ¿¡d
other curios. Arguing for the
20. P¡ivate collection.
p¡ese¡vation of Native Ameri-
can distinctiveness, they coun
tered evolutionist views of the superiority of European
civilization with claims for the equal and enduring
impo¡taûce of all ways of life, to be appreciated in rel-
ative terms ¡ather than judged by European srandards.
Modernist nostalgia arising f¡om alienation is f¡e,
quently cited as an underlying motivatior fo¡ this
growing preservationist position, but we should not
overlook the economíc importance of a burgeoning
tourist industry, nor discount the argument (made at
the time) that Native Ame¡icans would be more eco.
nomically successful and independent as artisans than
as labo¡ers. No¡ should we underesti¡nate the ideologi.
cal importance of adopting Native Americans as a pre.
modern heritage in the const¡uction of a distinctive
Ame¡ican nationalism.
Behind these changes was also an emergent elite of
corporate capitalists anxious to control laboring class
activism. Thet rejection ofhybridity as nacculturation'
arose f¡om an interest not only in p¡eserving a p¡isdne
Native Ame¡ican ethnicity to constitute their premod'
e¡n nationalist Other, but also in maintaining class
dominance through eugenic doctrines of racial purífi-
cation, enflaming fea¡s that miscegenation led to the
degradation and downfall of dominant races.ll
Hybridized curios, once favored as evidence of Narives'
I L At this rime many considered Anglo-saxons to be a r¿ce
râte ftom and superìor to orher Europeans.
-.
n,.., ,^ achieve civilization,
fliiå,.r,n'* t""lving
uten'
and
scriPt' Pictor-
,il iai ,tiott'
came to be rejected
ial imagerY,
as dangerouslY
bv rhis elite
and degraded'
.onraminat"d
. To legitirnate its ¡ecent eco-
through supe'
nomic supremacy
rior social status,
this emerging
sig*,l!i corporate elite acqui¡ed valu-
able and Prestigious objects that
would demonst¡ate distinctive
tasrc in consumption, ma¡king
out differencesf¡om the middle
classes. Basket craze
lite¡ature
contributed to such class differ'
entiafion and elite self'const¡uc-
rion by reducing the diversitY of
Fig.8 Mâssie James coiled basket, ca 1915-1920, with tipi motil Private colle€tion
products to two Polar categories:
(1) inexpensive, quickly made
objects available to any tourist as a souvenir and
judged who lauded technical and othe¡ changes in Native bas-
by the elite as vulgar; and (2) expensive, labor intensive
ket weaving as signs of "progress," characterized the use
ntrashy' (Mason
objects considered to be aesthetically ¡efined and de- of imitative fo¡m and script as 1904:
sired by collectors both as fine art and as financial 540). Varning prospective buyers against purchasing
investments. \íithin this dichotomy, the eclecticism of such "inauthentic" objects and thereby contributing to
rhe pictorial basketry mode generally relegated it to the basketry's degradation, James illustrated two Califo¡ni-
category of tourists'vulgar souvenir, while baskets with an baskets decorated with script, his caption reading
only geometric designs appealing to mode¡nism's for- "Basketry spoiled by vicious imitation" (James 1909:
rnal simplicity we¡e associated with ¡efined elite taste 192). Such vehement denunciations of script motifs
fo¡ "traditional" fìne arts. suggest that they were seen not merely as vulgar or
However, many writers articulating a relativist posi- contaminated, but as a disruption of the literacy boun-
tion "authenticated' pictorial imagery in the flo¡al dary that, by differentiating 'primitiveo f¡om "modern"
mode by reconfiguring it ftom a sign of Native ability peoples, could legitimate colonialist exploitarion.
to imitate and therefore progress toward civilization, to Vhile Native producers weaving for the popular,
lhe opposite meaning as a sign of Native peoples' souvenir, and gift markets continued to ¡nake imitative
*uochanging" objects like napkin rings and place mats, those aiming
association with natu¡e and premodern
spirituality. For Otis Tufton Mason, cu¡ato¡ of at the higher p¡iced ma¡ket for collectibles, and awa¡e
Ethnology at the U.S. National Museum, as for of disc¡iminations made by elite consumers and thei¡
George l7harton James, the leading popular writer on dealers, ceased using elements clearly appropriated ftom
basketry, pictorial images demonstrated that basketry Eu¡o-Ame¡ican design. To the consternation of some
designs could encode elabo¡ate mythological, ritual, anth¡opologists, however, even Native weavers who
and histo¡ical na¡ratives, specialized in producing t¡aditiotalist collectibles for the
ln contrast to pictorial imagery, script and utensil elite market continued to value the celeb¡atory quality
shapes could not be reconffgured as premode¡n and we¡e of script (O'Neale 1937: 158). And among the \T/ashoe,
strongly ¡ejectéd. Even Mason, a leading evolutionist the noto¡iety of Sarah Mayo's presentation basket
sparked a limited fashion fo¡ the inclusion of sc¡ipt in
floral-mode designs, including one by Sarah Mayo (Fig.
sep¿' 12 ln addicion, Toorsie Dick Sam wove a basket wich images of but-
terflies accompanied by the word "buaelly." ?) with the inscription "Sarah,'üashoe Princess."12
115
 In cont¡ast ro the popula¡ p¡eservationist position
that rejected script but accepted pictorial images as
signs of the Native American as nnatu¡al man" was the
stricte¡ preservationist position that rejected all designs
in the floral mode as inauthentic products of debased
comme¡cialism. This severe position was advocated by
the most elite membe¡s of the indust¡ial bourgeoisie
and was promulgated as a theory of 'culture' by
anthropologists employed at the museums and unive¡-
sities they funded. líhile F¡anz Boas was crucial in for-
mulating this approach at the American Museum of
Natural History and Columbia University in New
York City, Alfred Kroeber, his ff¡st studerr to com-
plete a doctorate, applied it to the Far \ü/est and specif-
ically to basketry studies during his tenu¡e at the
Department and Museum of Anthropology at Berke-
ley, both financed by Phoebe Apperson Hea¡st. Be.
cause K¡oebe¡ and his associates designed their publi-
cations as ¡econstructions of indigenous practices as
they might have existed in precontact times, all picto-
rials (and some other adaptations to the curio t¡ade)
were excluded from analysis (Cohodas 1997: 732-735\.
All of these categories and histories of reception
appear to have influenced the way consumers read pic-
torial imagery in 1ü/ashoe basketry. The assimilationist-
philanth¡opic position, and the associated bond
between bourgeois and Native woinen, is exemplified
by the collaboration between Margaretta D¡essle¡ and
Sarah Mayo on a basket that not only included a pic-
torial image with which they borh identified (eagle and
arrows), but also a textual motif of rhe rype rejected as
inauthentic by most collecto¡s a decade earlier (Fig. 6).
Around the same time, Maggie James attracted the
attertion of Edith Pope, wife of indusrrialist George
Pope, who purchased baskets during summers spent at
their estate on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, near a
\fashoe summe¡ encampment (Cohodas ß9A: fl5).
Edith Pope is remembe¡ed as having preferred James's
baskets with butterfly designs (Fig. 4), which I would
suggest she inte¡p¡eted as an element of nature, articu.
lating the perceived indivisibiliry of \Øashoe presence
f¡om the Arcadian splendor of her vacation sur¡ound-
ings. And only two years after Mayo's basket was sent
to Wood¡ow \ü/ilson, anth¡opologist Samuel Barrett, a
basketry specialist who earned his docto¡ate at
Berkeley under Ktoeber, visited Lake Tahoe to make a
¡epresentative \Tashoe collection fo¡ the Milwaukee
Public Museum. He purchased several three-¡od
116
degik4p (Batett 1917: plate IX) which may bs
as the wo¡k of Tillie Snooks, Sarah Mayo, and V"
*]
James, three weave¡s whose baskets wete ¡egula¡ly
rogether. Although James was using pictorial designs
about half of he¡ {íne dzgikuþ, and Mayo in almost
of hers, Barrett's st¡icter position appears to h¿ys
vented him from purchaling any of these. V/l.rile
acknowledged in the resulting publication that the
met¡ic deco¡ations o{ these d.egikup represented
t¡ade modifications (Ba¡¡et 1917: 7Z), Bar¡ett appa¡li$
ently believed that they could be reconrexrualized
rJS
represent precontacl authenticity in a way rhat the pic.
torial designs he excluded could not. I iòrnis to serve multiple agendas, conflicts
The variety of pictorial images would also harr" ,,.,g-,.,,:.
gested a va¡iety of ¡eadings to consumers. Most pictor. ,:
ial images in \(/ashoe and generally in Californian bas.
kery articulare a relarionship between Native and natu¡e
that conformed to the ron-th¡eatening or domesticat-
ed aspect of the relationship to Native Ame¡icans
sought by the dominant group in American society,
Cu¡io consume¡s may have chosen such objects to con-
c¡etize their positive assessment of \Øeste¡n technolog.
ical progress and its ability to dorninate nature and col-
onized peoples, as well as thei¡ iûterest in p¡ese¡ving
Native Ame¡ican diffe¡ence as a premodern, national-
ist Other. Diverging ftom this median were, on the one
hand, stereotyped arrd ofren childlike images (Fig. 8)
that would have legitimated the federal gove¡nment's
patriarchal cont¡ol aûd, on the othe¡ hand, asse¡tive
rejections of such ste¡eotypes rhat would have ¡esonar-
ed with beliefs in Native rights of self-determination.
Some of these positions would have become en-
trenched through Native producers' attempts to meet
the diversity of taste exe¡cised by non-Narive pur-
chase¡s' selections. However, the role of Native pro-
ducers in resisting, altering, and in some cases origi-
nating these constructions should not be unde¡valued.
Conclusion
Many analyses of pictorial modes of curio decorarion,
including my earlier discussion of lfashoe pictorial
weaving (Cohodas 1982), have suffe¡ed from ¡eductive
characterizations, Closer analysis ¡eveals that borh
Natives and non-Natives in this períod developed
lifestyles characterized by various and changing cornbi'
nations of indigenous, imported, and wholly new prac-
tices and thus performed both premode¡n and mode¡n
simultaneously. Non-Natives expressed their Curtis, Edward S.
1926 'fl,e North American Indian. Volume 15 F W.
desi¡es for the extinction or preservation of
Hodge, ed. Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press
-liììi;ì,. ¿ir"r"".. through varied forms of consump- d'Azevedo, Varren L. and Thomas Kavanagh
including touristic souvenirs' fine art collectibles, 1974 'lh,e T¡ail of the Missing Basket lndian Historian
ror""- artifacts, and through varied readings as
îlà ?(3): 12-13,60, 64.
of p.ogt"tt, signs of the domestication of natu¡e Herbst, Toby and Joel Kopp
iìù, 1993 The Grandfather's Flag. ln: Toby Herbst and Joel
or waÌn¡ngs against miscegena-
¿¡d the premodern' Kopp (eds.), 'the FIag in American Indian At (Coopers-
ìi¿n. li'trether intended as submissive, assertive, or cel-
rown, NY: New Yo¡k State Histo¡ical Association),
consumers could
ibratory forms of auto-ethnography, 15-26.
as signs of progress or domesti-
ìèad pictotial imagery Guy, Herbe¡t
or connection. Because this flexi- 1976 Traditioûal Use of Pacriotic Designs in American
cation,of difference
bility of meaning allowed flo¡al deco¡ and othe¡ cu¡io lndian ,Art. Arizona HishwaJs 52(?):2 73.
between dif' James, George Vharton
1909 Inàian Fou¡th edition. S.l.: Henry Malkan.
ferent groups and institutions were in some cases
Basketry.
[Reprint: New York, NY 19?2r Dover.]
éxpressed as conflicts ove¡ the reading of these
images.
Mason, Otis Tufton
. As such conflicts of class, race, ethnicity, and gen- 1904 Aboriginal American Basketry: Studies in a Textile
de¡ condnue to be negotiated through symbolic forms A¡t \Øirhout Machinery. Annuøl Report of the Boatd of
as well as political action, we can expect that these Regents o/ rh€ Smitiìronilnlîstitution Íor theYear End'ing
images will continue to be read and that ftom these June 30, 1902: !71-548.
Mer¡iam, C, Ha¡t
readirgs rrew interpretations will emerge. For example,
1955 Studies oÍ the Cdlilomia In¿ia,ns Edited by the staff of
through current inte¡ests in t¡anscultu¡ation and
the Department of Anthropology of the University of
hybridiry, curios once rejected as inauthentic a¡e in- California. Berkeley, CA: Uoiversity ofCalifornia Press
stead seen as marking out a history of dialogic ex- Moser, Christopher L.
change ofideas and information that must ¡eckon rvith 1986 (ed.) Natiue Americøt Baskerry ol Central California.
changing tastes, values, ideologies, and economic rela- Riverside, CA: Riverside Municipal Museum
O'Neale, Lila M.
tions (Phillips 1998: 10, 73).
1932 Yurok-Ka¡ok Basket Veave¡s Uni,Lersitl of Califor'
nia Publications in Ameican Archaeologl anò' Ethnolog 32
(1): r-184.
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