2 Vintage Micmac Native American Ash Splint Baskets c. 1930-40. One 6 1/2"x6 1/2"x 3 1/2". The other with lid measures 3 1/4"x3 1/4"x3". Weight 2 pds Baskets have been made by Maine and Eastern Canadian basketmakers, members of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes, since prior to the arrival of Europeans. The four tribes are collectively called the Wabanaki. Their baskets are woven from primarily from brown ash, “the basket tree” which grows in swampy areas throughout the most northern Northeast. Often a grass found only in tidal marshes, Northeastern sweet grass, is added to the brown ash. This grass is either braided or used plain. It can be added to the rim of a basket or used as the “weavers” over the brown ash foundation. Sometimes it is used in conjunction with brown ash weavers to form a design. In other baskets designs are made by “curling” the thin brown ash splints in one of several decorative shapes and adding these curls to the outer body of the basket.

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