Storage Basket

This basket, identified as Lillooet (Stl'atl'imx) by Rena Point Bolton, was collected along the Fraser River. Ethnographic literature on this area and historical accounts in the Fort Langley Journals note that the Lillooet or Stl'atl'imx people inhabited the area north of the Fort. The shape of this basket is typical of the Lillooet examples discussed in Haeberlin and Teit's 1928 volume on Coiled Basketry in British Columbia.

According to Rena Point Bolton this basket was likely made for a woman to use, a daughter or granddaughter. This is indicated by the strong use of red on the edges, since red is a colour which is used on gifts to female relatives and is indicative of love.

This basket is decorated with different versions of the arrowhead design.

Red and tan basket (part a) with a lid (part b) in interlocking coiled work (bifurcated stitches). Parallel slat base construction. Flange on the basket body (part a). Lid (part b) with a splint around the edge. Basket (part a) has handles and is decorated with both beading and imbrication. Sides of the basket (part a) have partial imbrication with vertical panels in black cherry bark and canary grass (two different patterns of pyramid and half-pyramid form). Lid (part b)is beaded (3:1), and rows alternate in black-dyed cherry bark and in canary grass (sides of lid are in continuation with sides of basket). Has skin ties.