Like many other tribes, the Wappo Indians crafted intricate basketry.
Basket weaving is a utilitarian craft that dates back as early as the Egyptian culture of 10,000 years ago. Archeological discoveries have verified that this craft is nearly as old in the Western Hemisphere, too. Native Americans used the baskets they made in a variety of styles to carry their children, prepare their food and give as gifts.
Materials
Depending on the plant matter most available to the various tribes of North and South America, early examples of hand-crafted baskets could be made from a variety of materials. The Indians of the American Southeast, such as the Cherokee, made their baskets with wicker from rivercane or pine needles. The Ojibwe of the North used birchbark. Many others used the ubiquitous sweetgrass, cedar bark, black ash, spruce root or seagrass for weaving material -- depending on the plant life thriving in their region.
Methods
According to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, several techniques were employed by Native Americans through history to create unique basketry. Wicker weaving, with an over-and-under orientation, was popular with the Hopi Indians of the Southwest. A plaiting technique used two different-colored materials to create a checkboard effect, another tradition that took shape in southwestern tribes. Coiling, used by tribes of the Northwest such as the Salishan, involves starting at a central point and winding outward in broader swaths. Another popular method was called twining, with stiff rods holding the more malleable twisting fibers of the basket in place.
Adornment
Aside from the designs inherent in each style of basket making, Native American tribes often decorated their baskets to make them even more unique. Many times, women were the basket weavers, who then passed their final products on to the men who painted on various symbols holding special meaning to the tribe. Other times, such as with the basketry of the Apache, Navajo, Hopi and Chemehuevi tribes of the West, the types of plant fibers used and the intricacy of the weaving technique is what gave the baskets a unique and aesthetic pattern.
Other Styles
As Indian tribes evolved and intermingled with other tribes, their styles of basketry took leaps in appearance and construction, too. For example, the varying tribes forced by colonists to gather on reservations in Oklahoma, after centuries of dominance on the East Coast, began to assimilate different forms of basket making into a unique new style that's persisted to this day. Another unique form of basketry evolved among the Indians of the American Plains, who made boxes out of leather hides, then painted the untanned sides of the boxes in intricate patterns.
