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- 5207-112 Pasamaquoddy Basket: Lidded
5207-112 Pasamaquoddy Basket: Lidded
Early 20th Century
Size: 3.25" H x 6" D
WABANAKI IN MAINE & THE MARITIMES
The Wabanaki tribes consist of the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq people of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
For centuries the Wabanaki people have passed on their cultural heritage through their basketry. Before recorded history, woodsplint and birchbark baskets were made for utilitarian use and trade purposes. Splint baskets made of brown ash trees and sweetgrass from saltwater marshes in Maine eventually became a means of economic and cultural survival, particularly in the nineteenth century, right through the turn of the century of the Victorian era. This was a time of great deprivation for the Wabanaki people, living on reservations, with limited land to hunt and fish and becoming more dependent upon the European economy and trade goods to feed their families. Economic survival prompted the creative production of “fancy baskets” for sale to local and tourist markets along the coastal routes as new markets emerged at popular coastal resorts in Maine and New England.
Highly adaptable, creative and mobile as a culture, Passamaquoddy weavers began to market and sell “fancy baskets” that appealed to the new collectors and Victorian tourist trade that began to flourish at the turn of the century along coastal waters. Responsive to the emerging market, many basketmakers traveled to coastal areas in the summer and set up rough camps just outside the seaside resorts such as Bar Harbor and Poland Springs, Maine where affluent travelers and tourists began their summer residence. The summer trade market began to decline by the 1930s, likely influenced by the Stock Market crash of 1929, and the Great Depression (1929-1939), as well as inexpensive imported products. Gradually the economy in basketmaking was replaced by other employment sources. Sales to summer tourists on the reservations and local markets continued on a smaller scale, but, by 1980, the basketmaking tradition was practiced by very few weavers.