Small Carrying Basket

While women are almost exclusively the textile weavers of the hilltribe cultures, men most often are the basket makers. Often the older men, by virtue of the less physically demanding requirements, can be found cutting the bamboo or rattan into long strips and then weaving the pliable green strips in to a variety of basket shapes and sizes.

Once woven, many bamboo and rattan carrying baskets are hung on the homes’ rafters for up to a year where the daily hearth’s smoke seasons them. The smoke not only strengthens the rattan, granting it flexibility when dry, but also gives the baskets, once the accumulated creosote has been rubbed off, a warm and beautiful patina. The smoked baskets are considered to be of greater beauty and value.

Depending on the individual artist, the culture, and the baskets’ purpose, baskets may be plain and practical, woven of a single color and strip-width, or complex and decorative, woven with patterns of dyed strip colors, varying widths and materials, and unusual design lines. Pieces of wood are often woven onto the frame to lift the basket off the floor and create greater strength of form.

Carrying baskets take food to and from the fields or market, hold berries, greens or rice. This basket has forehead straps made of hemp for weight distribution.

Origin: Highland Tribes of Laos and Vietnam

Date: ca Mid 20th

Material: Rattan or Bamboo