Brown Ash Splints Baskets
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Basketmakers on Indian Island, circa 1900 Courtesy of Hudson Museum

Brown ash splint baskets tell important stories in museum collections. Ash splints dyed cadmium yellow, iron oxide red and indigo gave baskets like the one pictured below their names — band boxes. The woven baskets with brightly colored bands were used as traveling trunks or for home storage of clothes and linens.

The circa 1860 band box now in the collection of the University of Maine Hudson Museum came from Old Fort Western in Augusta, Maine. It dates from a time when the fort was used to house textile workers — many of whom were immigrants — and sheds light on the domestic possessions of a social class that left little behind in the way of records or material culture.

Though a Maine Indian basket that had no utility in the Wabanaki culture, the band box showcases the artistry of one of the oldest indigenous artforms and represents the evolution of splint basketry to meet the needs of another culture.