Kawaiisu (Nüwa) Polychrome Basket Bowl

Ray Grant, Redding, California

Jerry Collings, Sedona, Arizona

George Everett Shaw, Aspen, Colorado

American Private Collection, acquired from the above on July 13, 1987

The stepped radial design of this exquisitely-woven basketry bowl, with red bands of yucca root bounded by a double-border of black-dyed bulrush, is characteristic of the Kawaiisu (Nüwa) basketweavers of the Tehachapi Valley region of Kern County, California. At the turn of the 20^th century, the Kawaiisu were among the greatest basketweavers of California, with a style closely related to that of the more numerous weavers from the Yokuts groups to the northwest. The black-bordered red band motif can be seen on the most famous of Kawaiisu baskets, a storied early 19^th century bottleneck basket known as the “Apostilic Basket” (see Maurice Zigmond, “Kawaiisu Basketry”, The Journal of California Anthropology, Vol. 5, p. 209, fig. 15), formerly in the collection of Edwin Lincoln McLeod and today in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley (inv. no. 1-20934).  Zigmond identifies the design of a radial stepped band as wigidawi miyag^weedi, 'going sideways’ or ‘going across’. The inverted L-shaped extensions above each step may represent the topknot of a quail, and this design has been interpreted as a highly stylized abstraction of a flock of quails in flight. The exceptionally tight, even stitching is testimony to the reputation of the Kawaiisu for their superlative weaving.