Sweetgrass Baskets: An African American Crafting Tradition
(Image via USA Today)
"I am an 8th generation sweetgrass basket maker” says Vera Manigault of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. She is part of the Gullah people, descendants of slaves who worked the rice plantations off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.
“Since I was 4 1/2 years old I’ve been sewing sweetgrass baskets. I learned mostly from my Great Aunt Rosa.” Manigault is now in her 60s. “My ancestors worked the Boone Hall Plantation, Laurel Hill Plantation, and Gregory Plantation. They probably started sewing baskets even before that.”
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Gullah artists employ the West African tradition of dried sweetgrass and coil it in circles. Thin strands of palmetto fronds hold the piece in place. They add bulrush and pine needles for decoration and strength. Basket makers use either a “sewing bone” or a “nailbone.” Sewing bones are sharpened metal spoons, and nailbones are little metal picks made by flattening nails or whittling the rib bones of a cow or pig.
(Basket by Mary Jackson)
Sweetgrass baskets are similar in style to the shukublay baskets of Sierra Leone, where they coil baskets “so tightly they can hold water.”
Sweetgrass grows along the inter coastal waterway and is harvested in the spring and summer by “pullers” who slip it from its roots and place it in the sun to dry. ”I’ll still go out and pick the sweetgrass myself until a snake comes,” says Manigault. “That’s where I draw the line.”
(Photo via NPS)
(Image via Post and Courier)
In the 1600s, Africans taken from the present day Mano River Region, Senegambia and Angola-Congolese regions of West Africa brought the art of coiled basket making to America. Gullah slaves used their knowledge of basket making to craft large “fanner” baskets used to winnow rice by tossing it in the air and letting the breeze blow away the chaff. On the plantations, male slaves wove heavy field baskets out of bulrush. Today, the sweetgrass baskets have evolved from an agricultural craft to an art form produced for sale.
The Gullah used to set up their own independent stands along Highway 17 in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, but the recent highway widening project made it dangerous. Some still sell their bread baskets, moses baskets, sewing baskets, and fruit baskets right there in more formal stands, but basket makers also sell in downtown Charleston, along Market, Broad, and Meeting streets. Other makers have brought their business online, launching their own websites and even selling on Etsy.
Image via Soul of America
Image via Highway 17
"My baskets range from $5 to over $1,000 for my big clothes hamper" Manigault says. “Some people even take the lid off and they get a round circle of glass and use it as a coffee table.” It takes her 4 hours for a small basket and months for the clothes hamper. She teaches classes and does presentations on basket making at the recreation center in Mt. Pleasant.
She says there are very few left handed basket makers. The stitch of a left-hander is different. “Gullah people want their kids to be right handed. We say you’ve got a work a day for the devil with your left hand,” she laughs.
Goldenrod & Sweetgrass © Elizabeth McConnell of Hamlin Farms
The Gullah slaves in coastal South Carolina and Georgia lived in a very different situation from that of slaves in other North American colonies. The Gullahs had little contact with whites. They experienced a largely isolated community life on the rice plantations. Their geographical isolation and numerical strength enabled them to preserve this wonderful African cultural art.
Today, sweetgrass baskets are mainstream, desired, collectible, and valuable.
A few years ago, an exhibition of 200 baskets toured along the East Coast. It began in Charleston, South Carolina and made a stop at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.
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Michael Smalls and Daurus Niles, distant cousins from the Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina sewed baskets that appeared at the Smithsonian Exhibit. “The (Smithsonian) exhibit was a great chance to keep this art form going,” said Smalls.
Sweetgrass basket making, once an agricultural necessity, has clearly elevated to high art. Gullah artist Mary Jackson’s baskets have been exhibited in Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of African American History in Detroit, and White House Collection of Arts and Crafts. She even won a MacArthur Foundation genius award in 2008.
(Video via You Tube for Craft in America)
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