Native American OJIBWA Indian Strawberry Heart Berry Basket
Native American OJIBWA Indian Strawberry Heart Berry Basket made with tiny dyed blood red ash splints and fragrant sweetgrass - an authentic traditional Native American basketry craft.
Measures 3.5" high and almost 3.5" in diameter, this brilliantly crafted Strawberry Heart Basket features the strawberry design, with rows upon rows of curled ash, dyed green ash stem and leaves and decorative and fragrant sweetgrass. Two rings, one for the lid and one for the base, allow this handwoven basket to be tied closed for ceremonial use.
Many basket collectors and collectors of Native American basketry have incorrectly been told over the years that these baskets were crafted by Native American Indians as tourist's baskets.
However, authoritive research indicates otherwise. For example, Don "Red Arrow" Stevens of Blanchard, Michigan who is an Ojibwa Tradition Bearer and Storyteller comments as follows: The heart berry basket was also used in naming ceremonies when "the medicine man or lady or the grandparents and parents gave names to the young ones" and a two-inch high basket, called a grave basket, is placed in the grave of the deceased so "they would have the heart berry in the new life.
The red color reminds us that the Creator shed his blood for us." Though he says that some of the members of the community no longer use the strawberry basket for all of its traditional uses, Red Arrow makes sure members know how to make the baskets and use them in ceremonies.
Additionally, the president of the National Center for Great Lakes Native American Culture states, "The Strawberry Basket is made for and given to new-born babies and it is a treasure kept through their entire life and taken with them to the Spirit World. A piece of their umbilical cord is kept in the basket along with other things of special meaning so the ancestors will recognize them when the arrive in the Spirit World. In the Algonquian languages, the word for heart (as in human heart) and strawberry are almost always the same. Therefore, the strawberry has great significance to our People. In our stories of what happens after death, we speak of going to the Spirit World where our families greet us with the first fruit, the strawberry."
This authentic Native American strawberry heart berry basket is in excellent and unused condition, still retains the fragrant scent of the sweetgrass, and the Ojibwa basketweaver has inserted an ash splint into the lid with her signature and date. (2004).
SB582 - Native American OJIBWA Indian Strawberry Heart Berry Basket
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