Posted 7 years ago
JeremyMOlson
(1 item)
So Not one appraiser or expert on baskets can help me identify the origin of this basket!!! It has Hopi glyphs but isn't made in a Hopi style I've ever seen. I've asked African experts and they claim it must be from America I've asked Native American experts and they claim it from Africa lol. My grandmother gave this basket and told me an elder of the Coyte Hopi clan gave her this basket from the Kiva in the 1980's. So I'm thinking maybe a Hopi married an African and we have a mix of cultures goin on here. Let me know what you think.
Nope, no mixture of cultures here. It is African, from Botswana. Positively.
Anyone truly familiar with African baskets should be able to recognize it immediately. It has the iconic flaring form of Botswana baskets, the stylized animal figures still found on popular imported baskets from Botswana today, and it is woven from palm fiber. Other than being coiled, it really has no similarity to Hopi baskets. Or any other Native American tribal baskets. It is distinctively Botswana.
I have no idea how your grandmother came up with that story, but just because a Native American person gifts you with an item, it doesn't mean that it is Native American. African baskets are widely available in the Southwest, so maybe it came from a Santa Fe gallery or gift shop, and was then passed on to grandma.
But it has no connection with the Hopi, whose baskets are very strictly governed by cultural and religious rules. Coiled baskets are only made on Second Mesa, and woven from galleta grass and yucca.