Packbaskets

[kansas_volunteer]

There was some recent discussion here of the PC-ness of packbaskets and other packs for reinactors.

It made me curious, so I contactacted the Museum of the Adirondacks and inquired about the history of the packbasket.

There is a long tradition of use of packbaskets by both Europeans and Paleoimmigrant Americans (NDNs.) But,for the Adirondack packbasket in particular, there is reference to packbaskets in the region as early as 1830, but most are of 1880 vintage of later.

The Abanaki Indians claim to have crafted the first baskets, and that was relatively late in history, if I interpret the materials I received correctly.

There are two types of basket. Both have square bottoms, but one has a small round mouth, the type invented by the Abanaki, and the other has a large oval mouth. The latter, I think, are the shape now sold as trapping baskets.

Although primarily made of black ash, the baskets were made of white ash and other woods. They were produced as far south as Connecticutt and as far north as Quebec.

Based on the info I received from the Museum, I think a packbasket, or trap basket, would not be PC for any era prior to 1880, or the late 19th century, and would not be HC for any region outside of the Adirondacks and vicinity.

 

[George Kevil]

I think that you can get by with a woven basket if you use a tump line on your head and not the woven straps over you shoulders.That is if your going to a juried event or your trying to be proper for your area and time frame. If not use it. I would rather use a blanket rolled up and a wallet. The straps are unconfortable on me.
George

 

[pichou]

Yeah, besides, the Indian baskets are women's baskets. :haha:

If you could find a willow basket that tapers towards the botton, and put a trumpline on it, it would be PC for anywhere in the NE/Great Lakes, but you still need a Indian woman to carry it. :rotf:

 

[omarick1948]

I got an Indian woman...and she told me to carry it myself!

 

[kansas_volunteer]

I think you guys are probably right about the packbasket originally being an item for womens' work.

The Adirondack packbasket is believed to have been made after a similar shaped basket of birch bark. For those who want to be sure of being PC with a Adirondak-shaped packbasket probably ought ot go with the bark version.

The conical willow basket is HC for many parts of the country. They were even used in Europe,too. I've seen pictures of similar packbaskets being used in china. It's a pretty universal item, which leads me to belive it must have developed in very ancient times to have spread around the world as it has. Such a basket could be condsidered PC for jut about any era of reinactment.

 

[sundog]

I think that pack baskets were used by men and women. If you go to the Basketville web site you may get some usefull information. Basketville has been making baskets since 1842.
Their current "backpack" basket is made on a 100 year old form.
Basketville is in Putney Vermont and they do still make baskets in the USA. There was an earlyer pack basket thet they made with a narrower top then todays pack basket. I dont know when they discontinued that narrow top style but it was a long time ago.

 

[pichou]

SD I'm not picking on you, but let's just take a academic look at your argument:

1. "I think... " i.e. no data presented.

2. "making baskets since... " What kind of baskets?

3. "100 year old form." It would have to be 200 years old to make a difference for this topic.

4. Vermont in 1843 is not the same as all of North America from 1492 to 1900.

:v

 

[omarick1948]

I think Sun Dog was trying to add some helpful input to this thread!...Not asking for a grade on a term paper!

 

[paulvallandigham]

Please be a little more careful who you dis about these things. First, you don't have much of a historical record about these things- wood culture tools and equipmemt were burned, when they were worn out, and you just didn't find very many museums interested in collecting items much before the first quarter of the 19th century. Second, a manufacturer beginning business in the 1840s would of course be copying well known, and accepted baskets in styles that dated back many years before the company was formed. Even the company would have had no idea how old a style of basket was.

The 1840s was the beginning of our Industrial age, and factories were created to mass produce goods that had before then only been made by hand in a cottage style industry, at best. The reason the modern baskets have the same diameter opening as the barrel of the basket, is because its much easier to produce. Archeologist are the folks who have since alerted us to older styles with discoveries in burial sights, or caves, etc. Even the First Americans forgot much of their old styles and ways of doing things during the 19th and 20th century, before people became interested enough to study this stuff, and locate the few remaining artifacts available- often mislabeled- in private and some public museums.

I don't think anyone here is trying to say something was one way for certain, because none of us can know for sure. A new archeological discovery can change what we think we know of our human history over night. For instance, Up until the early 20th century, Dinosaur bones were thought to be the leg bones of giant men!

Perhaps, some day we will learn why earlier baskets were constructed with smaller diameter mouths or openings, than the newer ones. There was usually a reason for all these nuances. Often, the answer is there for the asking if you find someone using an older style basket. Otherwise, students have to make one of each style, and then use them extensively to learn the " whys".

 

[sundog]

Certainly seems to me like an attack.
In 1972 whyle an undergarduate student I interned at the Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian as a conservitor. The Museum had numerious woodland indian ( Algonquin speaking peoples) pack baskets many of them were classed as hunters baskets.
In 1973 whyle still a student I worked part time doing conservation and resdtoration for a small private museum. The collection included a pack/trappers basket and acoutriments. The basket came from the Dummerstown area and was dated to the 1780s- please do a web search for Fort Dummer. I remember that basket well because among the items associated with it was a throwing stick/club and I had just done a paper on Brachialy propelled weapons ( thrown weapons)and it was very unusuial to see a wooden utilitarian piece that old in the condition it was in.
A possible explanation for the rounded shape of the Eastern pack basket bottoms is that they followed the interior countour of Birch Bark canoes. As to the narrowed opening at the top 2 theories are prominent 1) The narrowed opening made the basket more comfortable to wear.2) it is structually stronger. Perhaps we should also consider that if the basket tipped its contents were less likely to spill.
I will continue this response later with a bibliography.

 

[omarick1948]

Well said, Paul and sundog!... :applause: :applause:

 

[pichou]

Certainly seems to me like an attack.

I sincerely and humbly apologize for any offense I may have given. That was not my intention. I did not mean to impair free discussion.

"We are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when we discuss it freely."
~ Thomas Babington

:redface: :redface: :redface:

 

[tg]

"SD I'm not picking on you, but let's just take a academic look at your argument:"

I think that by starting with the above there was an indication of no malice or attack, BTW good info all the way around on baskets, if you want to hear some real attacks you won't have to wait long, there will soon be some fresh threads on the Hunting forum or one of the others that tosses the term "traditional" around like a wet doll :grin:

 

[ameling]

Yes, an ... item ... such as this, so often brought up, thoroughly discussed, and seemingly settled, but still being brought up time-after-time in yet another attempt to find any shred of a possible piece of documentation to support the desire to justify its use ... can tend to try the patience of many people.

The simple answer (for those who actually want to see it)is that those modern commercially available trappers packbaskets with their modern straps just don't fit into time periods before the late 1800's at the earliest, but mostly 1900's. But if you are so dead set on using one, then do so. It's your PERSONAL CHOICE. Just don't make any claims to it fitting into any time period before the late 1800's.

YOUR personal choice - until such time as somebody finds credible specific documentation otherwise.

Just look at how people have taken ONE word out of an 1829 document and turned it into an all-encompassing DOCUMENTATION for the use of every modern style/shape/color of enamelware! They found their "holy grail" type of documentation to SHOVE INTO PEOPLE'S FACES to justify their personal WANT to use those items. And, of course, they just ignore anything else that would show how the definition of that word and what it applied to changed over the past 180 years!

What history has to tell us is there - for those who wish to seek it. But repeated questions to have other people document an item they would personally like to use gets tiring.

As they say, "the devil is in the details". The size/shape/style of things changed over the past couple hundred years - as did how the word/term/phrase to describe it. What you personally want/wish may not have existed in the same shape/style back then. A little ... personal ... research would go a long way to answer your questions.

In the end, it is all a matter of PERSONAL CHOICE. If you wish to use a modern trappers packbasket and fill it with blue/white speckled enamelware, then do so. But don't expect to convince other people to your vision as the one and only "true" path.

Yes, a test of one's patience....

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such. And FLAME AWAY if I have upset your gentle sensibilities.

Mikey - THAT grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Ditto folding handle skillets, any/all blankets just because the label says HBC or Witney, diamond shelters, modern "lodge" type dutch ovens, and many other items that keep resurfacing in search of that documentation that has so far been lacking.

 

[Mike Moore]

Kansas Volunteer,
I have references to three or four times that Whites in the early west improvised some form of packs to carry equipment in. None of the journals say how these "packs" looked or what they were made of. They were made on the spot with what I guess was native materials and thrown away when done.
The simplest and probably a good guess on what a few of these looked like is what a friend uses for his Spanish influenced pack saddle bags. Three hoops made of willow or small branches (to form three circles), two of which have 1/4 inch wide lengths of rawhide (his was goat) woven in dream catcher style patten (sounds bad, but is what you use when hooping beaver). These three pieces were then latched together, the open one forming the top and the other two meeting at the bottom, with the sides filed in the same style of weaving. A tradional pack basket used for the burrows and mules in the southwest to haul rocks, sticks, goods and about everything else. Tough, cheap and easy to repair when needed.
Since there are only a few packs mentioned, we see them only as a last ditch effort to get goods they needed (some only contained meat for the men). How would they have looked? Maybe cloth panniers through over the shoulder when sewed together? Which is what I use to carry my equipment in camp. Or a blanket gathered at the top with a rope and used?
Too many people answer a question like this only with what they are acquainted with and know; not with what would have solved the problem in that time frame or what was availible then. The early western traveler only have a few options when packs were needed (survival circumstances) and usually we are not in those. But when we are, we tend to think like they did - improvise, made do and make the best of it. They did the same thing.
They had pack animals, why would they not use in some form what was there? And adapt those to something a man could haul and use?
mike.

 

[Tsegoweleh]

I got an Indian woman...and she told me to carry it myself!

Now THAT was funny.

 

[lolasmom]

Hi, folks. I don't know squat about Eastern baskets, but I was trained out here in California by a Maidu woman who has carried on her people's traditions. We have our own Indian Museum here, so I'll go do a little research myself about pack baskets and see if I can contribute something to this thread. And don't get so darn serious. How about calling it a lively intellectual discussion? :grin:

 

[pichou]

I have been to that museum!

No doubt baskets carried on the back were used all sorts of places, but they weren't Adirondack trapper baskets with cotton webbing straps and a little gold MADE IN CHINA sticker. :haha:

My rule of thumb: if you can buy it from a reenactor catalog, it is probably wrong. :wink: