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| Today Tohono O'odham women probably make more baskets than do basket makers of any other tribe in North American. And the technique used by them is coiling. An outer sewing or binding element is coiled around a foundation made from a bundle of fine strands of bear grass. In the old days the light-colored binding element consisted of the new shoots of the willow, which come out on the trees in the spring. This has been substituted for in today's coiled baskets with the new growth of the leaves of the yucca as these emerge in summer to be picked in June through September. The green in Tohono O'odham baskets come from the old leaves of the same yucca. These are harvested in December and January. The black used to make designs in both old and new baskets comes from the white-seeded race of devil's claw, a normally wild plant but one which Tohono O'odham have for centuries been in the process of domesticating. The red that appears in some baskets comes from the straight roots of the banana yucca. |
| Since the 1930's Tohono O'odham have been making an almost endless variety of baskets for sale to non-Indians. Anita Antone made her first baskets before she went away as a first grade student at the Phoenix Indian School. She grew up in the village of Big Fields on the Tohono O'odham Nation where she learned to make baskets from her grandmother, "Buried Leaves," whose non-Indian name was Maria Elena Jose. Ms. Antone's mother was a basket maker too, but her mother's mother was a more patient teacher. |
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