Juana Basilia Sitmelelene (Chumash, 1782–1838), coin basket

The Chumash are a group of related Native peoples of coastal southern California whose homelands are centered around Santa Barbara and the Northern Channel Islands. For thousands of years, Chumash women made baskets for domestic use. There were trays, basins, and deep bowls for food preparation; large burden baskets; globular storage baskets; and jar-shaped baskets for keeping valuables. Women’s basketry hats served as a standard measure when trading acorns and other seeds. Cooking baskets, used for stone-boiling mush, were so tightly woven that they held water.

Skilled weavers that they were, Chumash women were accustomed to making baskets for sale or trade to other Native people, within their own villages or beyond. So when Spanish explorers and missionaries made their way into Chumash territory in the late 18th century, weavers were able to adapt their techniques to meet requests from the outsiders. They created oval and rectangular sewing baskets with lids, added pedestal bases to traditional bowls, and fashioned at least one basket in the shape of a padre’s hat. New design patterns included pictorial elements and inscriptions. These were all executed using their traditional weaving techniques and plant materials—juncus (basket rush) or deer-grass foundations sewn with split juncus and sumac—and largely following the traditional design layout with a border band.

The pinnacle of Chumash art was achieved in baskets into which they wove designs identical to those on Spanish colonial coins in circulation during the Mission Period. Sometimes called “presentation baskets” because one of them features an inscription indicating that it was intended as a gift, these baskets are some of the finest ever made anywhere in the world. The skill involved in creating the intricate patterns is truly unparalleled.

Only six of these heraldic design baskets are known to exist today. Three of them are inscribed with words in Spanish that had been written out for the weavers to copy as they wove. These inscriptions include the weavers’ names—Juana Basilia, María Marta, and María Sebastiana. Traditionally, weavers did not sign their baskets. That these women were asked to do so shows the high regard in which their art was held. Although this basket does not bear her name, its weaving technique and design layout are nearly identical to another presentation basket known to have been woven by Juana Basilia Sitmelelene.

—Jan Timbrook
Curator of ethnography, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History