Saturday, February 27, 2010

Newly Aquired Bushwhacker Basket

Bushwhacker Basket
5.5" dia. x 3" high (w/o handles)

I was very excited to find this sweet little Bushwhacker or Taghkanic basket. The basket is woven of hand pounded brown ash with rims and handles of ash, oak or hickory. The Bushwhackers used whatever wood was available for rims and handles so it makes it hard to know exactly what wood was used. I can't really see any grain pattern so I doubt they are oak though.
Identifying Bushwhacker baskets is actually relatively easy. For one thing they just have a "look" about them. Even from the above photo I was 95% sure it was a Bushwhacker. The hand carved handles have a chunky shoulder and notch and the rims are squatty, but thick. The rims are also double lashed, while many basket makers did this all Bushwhacker baskets will have this. These baskets were often confused with Shaker baskets and in fact this basket was being sold as being possibly Shaker. But, unlike most typical Shaker basket which feature a square bottom most typical Bushwhacker baskets feature a round bottom.

The one feature or signature of a Bushwhacker is the unique "knot" found in the bottom of the basket. All round bottom Bushwhacker basket will have one of these (unless it has broken off with age). This is the point were the weaver flipped the basket over and began weaving in the opposite direction.
 

5 comments:

  1. What a beautiful basket. Lucky You! ~Ann

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  2. Ann,

    Thanks, I was so excited to find the basket. I am also excited that I get to share it with people, otherwise it would just be sitting on a shelf in my house.

    Tony

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  3. PLEASE EXCUSE THE CAPS BUT MY EYESIGHT IS BAD AND EASIER FOR ME TO READ CAPS - I ENJOYED YOUR BLOG SO MUCH - I WOULD OF LIKED TO HAVE SEEN YOU EXPLAIN WHY THEY ARE CALLED BUSHWACKERS AS I ALSO TOOK A COUPLE OF MARTHA WETHERBEE CLASSES IN MARYLAND IN THE 80' AND SHE GAVE US THE INCREDIABLE STORY.

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  4. As Martha Wetherbee explained it, the term "bushwhacker" was a derogatory term that the locals of New York state called the reclusive basketmakers. The basketmakers made a meager life for themselves on the barren rocky land they occupied in whatever way they could. They basically "whacked the bushes" trying to find whatever they could. Shakers and Quakers also started out as derogatory names, but the those groups eventually took the names on themselves, just to show the name-callers they were above all of that.

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  5. The basket you found is beautiful. i could only hope to be lucky enough ti find one some day as it was made by ancestors. the proper family and the houghtlins were both my ancestors. after hearing all the stories when we visited our family in red hook, hudson area, germantown and others i cant recal. thanks for sharing ... H.F.Proper

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