Making Baskets

The natural materials essential to the creation of Wabanaki baskets are brown or black ash (Fraxinus nigra) and sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata). Brown ash grows in wetlands, swamps, bogs, and along the banks of rivers and streams. It has little commercial value, but is highly prized by Native Peoples from the Great Lakes to Nova Scotia for making baskets. The tree’s wood has unique properties. It does not have connective fibers between the annual growth rings and when the wood is pounded it separates into splints that represent one year of growth. The splints stay pliable and flexible for years and can be scraped or split down to paper thinness. Splints may be left natural or dyed with botanical and commercial aniline dyes.

Sweetgrass, an aromatic marsh grass, grows in areas adjacent to bodies of fresh and salt water. It is harvested a blade at a time, by pulling the grass out by the rhizome. The grass is divided into small bundles which are hung to dry. Once dry, the chaff is combed out with a wooden comb. Before it can be woven into baskets, it is soaked and either woven in a couple strands at a time or braided into a long cord.