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Sweetgrass basket with attached lid, 17 inches tall, circa 1990s. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Slotin Folk Art.

Basket weavers harvesting sweetgrass in Lowcountry

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Sweetgrass basket with attached lid, 17 inches tall, circa 1990s. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Slotin Folk Art.
Sweetgrass basket with attached lid, 17 inches tall, circa 1990s. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Slotin Folk Art.

ST. STEPHEN, S.C. (AP) – Basket weavers are harvesting sweetgrass on a federal tract of land in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

On Wednesday they were pulling the grass used to make sweetgrass baskets at the St. Stephen Powerhouse operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Berkeley County.

The grass is used in making the iconic sweetgrass baskets woven by the descendants of slaves in the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor that runs from North Carolina to Florida.

In recent years it has become harder to find the grass because rapid coastal development means fewer places where it grows and there are fewer places where weavers can get access the grass.

The Corps of Engineers says that pulling the grass is healthy for the plants because it grows back even thicker the following year.

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-09-03-14 1045GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Sweetgrass basket with attached lid, 17 inches tall, circa 1990s. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Slotin Folk Art.
Sweetgrass basket with attached lid, 17 inches tall, circa 1990s. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Slotin Folk Art.