Historic Lillooet First Nation Basket, c. 1880
British Columbia
cedar root, bear grass and wild cherry bark imbrication, copper hooks
7.5” high x 12” long x 9” deep
Note: The number 19 on the basket was most likely put there by the trading post that originally sold the basket at the turn of the last century. The addition of the copper handles is so rare, and indicates this basket was absolutely used for gathering and maybe cooking.
The Lillooet First Nation people are an important interior Salish tribe located in British Columbia. Formerly holding a mountainous territory of about one hundred miles in length from north to south, the area includes a river and lake of the same name. They are now settled upon reservations within the same territory, attached to Williams Lake and Fraser River agencies.
The Lillooet are expert basket makers, and basket weaving is still a principal industry in the tribe. Their baskets are woven spruce root using a coiled technique with slat foundation. The design is imbrication, a decorative overlay technique, using natural or vegetal dyed bear grass. Unique to the Lillooet basket is a wide rim opening that is rectangular with sides that curve out slightly and with squared corners.
Large coiled baskets were used for gathering and holding water in which to boil food by means of heated stones. Mats, blankets, and bags were woven from rushes, bark fiber, twisted strips of skin, and various kinds of animal hair, including that of a special breed of long-haired white dog now extinct.
