5/08/2009

Excerpt from the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies

Stephen P. Sweeting, ASA wrote an interesting article for the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies entitled Material Culture and the Natural World: Mayo, Seri, and Apache Basketry.

Stephen P. Sweeting, ASA is one of the co-owners of Toronto, Canada - based Appraisal Associates Consulting Inc. and an Accredited Senior Appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers (ASA). A fine art specialist with interests in indigenous material culture and cultural studies, Mr. Sweeting is a firm believer in the value of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to both the appraisal profession and scholarship. The author’s articles have been published in the ASA’s Personal Property Journal, the ISA’s Professional Appraisers Information Exchange, Canadian Insurance, The Globe and Mail, and a number of other print and web-based publications both in Canada and the USA.

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From Stephen Sweeting's article:

Indigenous peoples with strong ties to the land frequently have ex-tensive bodies of knowledge directly connected to the natural world. These bodies of knowledge encompass close relationships with plants, animals, and the ecologies of their homelands. The knowledge they carry and pass on from generation to generation forms an important part of their identities, their place in the world, and their expressions of culture.

A significant tangible product of indigenous knowledge is material culture expressed as art, craft, tools, and other useful, decorative, and ceremonial objects. In order to realize these objects, the maker needs a design concept, the physical means to manipulate the material into an end product, and of course, the actual raw material. Given that indigenous and traditional societies are so closely tied to the land, technologies for creating objects make heavy use of materials at hand – a large proportion of which is botanical. One key product of the transformation of plants into material culture through technology is the basket.

The need for containers is common to all cultures. Through time, various materials have been used to address this need including animal parts, modified or processed earth and rock, and various plant parts used “as is” or changed in some way. The manipulation and interweaving of natural fibre, branches, or bark into baskets is one of the most commonly constructed container types created by traditional cultures (Johnson 2002: 69). But standards of construction or craft are far from uniform. In her book on Apache baskets Clara Lee Tanner suggests that basketry tends to be more highly developed in nomadic than sedentary peoples (Tanner 1982: 17).

This paper will examine the differences in the basketmaking tradi-tions of three indigenous groups of the Americas -- the Mayo, the Seri, and the Apache. Two of these groups have nomadic roots, while the third has been sedentary for a very long time. Each of these indigenous cultures has a basketmaking tradition extending at least as far back as the first European contact in the 16th century, and probably much further. The Seri and the Apache were both nomadic peoples with strong connections to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The Mayo, on the other hand, have been sedentary agriculturalists since prior to early contact with the Spanish in 1533 (Yetman & van Devender 2002: 31). While Seri and Apache basketmaking have flourished and transitioned into effective modern commercial endeavors with serious artistic merit, Mayo basketry has not extended beyond its local, basic, and utilitarian roots. I will examine the reasons behind these differences, framing the discussion within a historical and comparative approach with heavy emphasis upon plant use, the crafting process, and the uses of baskets both in the past and the present. As well, I will discuss ties to broader aspects of culture and the ways basketmaking is integrated into contemporary life and economy. Finally, I will briefly look at the monetary value of Mayo, Seri, and Apache baskets in the global marketplace. Although significant portions of this paper fall under the discipline of ethnobiology – a field that will be foreign to many readers – I believe the concepts explored will demonstrate the synthesizing value of an integrated studies perspective on material culture.

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