Grass Baskets of Kodiak Island

A Heritage of Basketry
The practice of weaving is thousands of years old in coastal Alaska. Archaeological sites contain basket fragments and weaving tools, some dating to more than 500 years ago. These finds demonstrate the enduring contribution of woven objects to daily life. In classical Alutiiq society, weaving has always been both a functional and aesthetic art. Woven objects were essential to many tasks, yet each was typically made with great care and many were decorated. Even baskets and mats used in household chores might be embroidered with strands of maiddenhair fern, decorated with feathers, or edged with colored gutskin. This concern for beauty in everyday objects reflects a connection with the natural world and a reverence for the plants and animals that provided for people. Today, baskets are made and collected as an art form. Basket weaving remains a women's skill, taught through individual instruction, communal weaving and experience. Weaving symbolize pride in Native heritage and the passage of knowledge from one generation of women to the next. Arlene Skinner's baskets represent an unbroken chain of knowledge that stretches more than a century. She learned to weave from Eunice Von Scheele Neseth, attending her first class in the early 1980s. Neseth learned from Master Weaver Anfesia Tutiakoff Shapsnikoff - born on Atka in 1901, who in turn learned from her maternal aunt Mary Prokopiuff LaVigne - born on Attu in 1875. Today Arlene is passing weaving skills to her own daughters and to the Kodiak community through the classes she teaches.

 

Raw Materials
The Alutiit once made basketry from a great variety of natural fibers. Spruce root, wild grasses, birch bark, baleen and even animal sinew were into fashioned into containers, tools, bedding and clothing. Today, Kodiak weavers continue to work with both spruce root and grass (weg'et in the Alutiiq language). Grass basketry is particularly prized for its extraordinarily fine weave and warm natural color. The most commonly harvested wild grass is beach rye (Elymus areharius; also known as lyme grass), which is cut between June and September in coastal meadows. Once cut, beach rye must be bleached and dried to create material suitable for weaving. First, the grass is wrapped in burlap bags and left to cure. Over a period of two weeks it is repeatedly aired to prevent mold. Next, the grass leaves are removed from their stems, sorted into pieces of similar length, color, and texture, and hung to dry. Sunshine or a saltwater bath helps in bleaching the grass to a pale brown. When drying is complete, the weaver removes the midrib from each leaf and splits the remaining plant tissue into strands of desired thickness.

 

Weaving Techniques
Alutiiq and Aleut grass baskets are woven beginning at the base of the basket. Typically, a weaver wets her fingers to keep the grass soft and pliable. Grass strands may also be soaked in cold water and wrapped in a damp towel. It is important, however, not to over wet the weaving strands, as they may rot or darken in color. Weaving is a time consuming process. It takes great skill to produce tiny, even stitches and to create unique shapes, like the woven grass bottle covers, tiny basket earrings, or wallets made by contemporary artists. Many traditional Alutiiq baskets were embellished with false embroidery. Geometric designs, and occasionally animal images, were woven into the outer surface of a basket with colored strands of grass or other natural fibers (e.g., maiddenhair fern). Grass strands were tinted with natural dyes. Blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, wild iris petals, alder bark, and a mixture of charcoal and seal oil produced an array of hues.

 

 

 

From Arlene Skinner:
"My weaving story began twenty years ago when I casually walked into a weaving class, expecting to be lead through a few simple steps that would allow me to quickly finish a basket. Instead, I soon discovered frustration in working with the touchy grass and tiny fine weave; however, by the end of the semester, my curiosity had been roused and I wondered how the master weavers had accomplished such a command of the fiber and then
fashioned it into beautiful small baskets."I was anxious to try my hand at harvesting the grass and working on refining my weaving stitch. Through the years, family picnics at the beach have encouraged the leisurely gathering of the grass while winter days have been occupied trying to discover the secrets of a well formed basket. Time has only deepened my appreciation for the natural beauty of the wild grass; in my view, baskets woven with wild beach grass need very little enhancement, but I like to add a few stones, shells or silk floss design."

Learn More:

• Download the Grass Baskets Exhibit Brochure

The following publications contain additional information on Alutiiq weaving and Alaskan grass baskets: 

• Black, Lydia T. 2003 Aleut Art. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc., Anchorage.
• Birket Smith, Kaj 1953 Chugach Eskimo. Nationalmuseets Skrifter, Etnografisk Raekke 6. Copenhagen.
• Heizer, Robert F. 1956 Archaeology of the Uyak Site Kodiak Island, Alaska. Anthropological Records 17:1. University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Knecht, Richard A. 1995 Late Prehistory of the Alutiiq People. Ph.D. Thesis, Bryn Mawr College.
• Lantis, Margaret 1984 Aleut. In, Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5, Arctic, edited by D. Damas, Pp. 161-184. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Lee, Molly 1981 "If Its Not a Tlingit Basket, Then What is it?": Toward the Definition of an Alutiiq Twined Spruce Root Basket Type. Arcitc Anthropology 43(2):164-171.
• Murray, Martha G. and Peter L. Corey 1997 Aleut Weavers. Concepts, Alaska State Museums Technical Paper 8.
• Russell, Priscilla 1991 English Bay and Port Graham Alutiiq Plantlore. Pratt Museum, Homer.