Native American Arts and Crafts—Plateau

Tribes affected: Cayuse, Chilcotin, Klikitat, Lillooet, Nez Perce, Shuswap, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Wasco, Wishram, Yakima

Significance: The arts and crafts of the Plateau effectively preserved traditional design styles and techniques longer than most other Native American culture areas

The Plateau Indians have produced bags, basketry, beadwork, and wood carving of excellent quality. Their work reflects the influences from neighboring culture areas and demonstrates the diffusion and acculturation of arts and crafts traditions across culture lines among Native Americans. Contact with European groups occurred later here than in most other areas, and this fact permitted a greater preservation of traditional arts and crafts.

Woven Bags

The Plateau bag is the most distinctive art and craft medium of this culture area. These bags are known for their geometric designs and skillful color patterns. The women makers of these bags are known for their weaving skill, and many of them achieved personal visions of aesthetic excellence in geometric and color composition. Along with Navajo blankets and rugs, these bags represent the finest designs in North American weaving. Plateau people have also made blankets but never with the same sophistication with which they weave bags.

The first European Americans to arrive in the area were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805, and they mentioned the woven bags made by the Nez Perce. The twined or woven bags are made with the beige background of hemp but then decorated with bear grass and cattails dyed with vegetable colors. After corn was introduced into the area in the early nineteenth century, corn husks were used for the bags; later, yarn was also incorporated. After that they were sometimes referred to as cornhusk bags. They were made in varying sizes, ranging from 8 by 8 inches to 18 by 22 inches. Some large versions of the bag are as much as 36 inches long, and they were usually carried vertically. They were originally used for carrying food that had been collected. After horses arrived in the region, they were used as saddlebags. In the twentieth century they became decorative handbags carried by women.

The designs were traditionally geometric, but figurative motifs were introduced in the late nineteenth century. The bag was continuously woven in the round, with the front side being more elaborate than the back. Triangles and diamond shapes were especially popular, and they were sometimes combined to form star, butterfly, cross, chevron, or arrow designs. Smaller designs were incorporated within or around the larger main design, which added complexity and visual interest. Long straight lines were frequently serrated, also creating more visual interest. Bag designs also emphasize the play between positive and negative spaces so that the viewer must shift his or her vision between the two.

The introduction of figurative designs including plants, animals, and humans reflected European American influences, especially the floral designs of the Victorian period. Since weaving lends itself more to the representation of geometric shapes than to reproducing organic ones, geometric forms continued to be important into the twentieth century. The ability to make organic, figurative shapes was the sign of a skillful weaver.

Baskets and Basketry

Both coiling and twining were used to make basketry items. Twining was used to make soft fiber objects such as hats and bags, as discussed above. Coiling was used to make more rigid basket containers, ranging from small bowls to large storage baskets. A technique of decoration known as “imbrication” is distinctive to the Plateau area. Imbrication is a process of creating a second decorative layer on top of the coil-made basket by stitching it into the surface of the basket. Since the decorative layer has no important structural problems to solve, it can be designed purely for aesthetic purposes. The imbricated layer has a continuous surface not interrupted by the dominant coil lines of the coil-made basket. Mats were also made by some groups and were traditionally used to cover the walls of tipis.

Beads and Beading

Beading was done on clothes, bags, baskets, and horse trappings, among other things, and represents an influence from the Plains tribes to the east. Similar to the Northern Plains people, both men and women of the Plateau used buckskin clothing decorated with beadwork. Originally beads were added to fringes, but later overall beading was used for shirts, cuffs, headbands, belts, and other accessories. Beading was used for horse trappings, including bridles, mane covers, shin straps, stirrup covers, and saddle bags. Beading was also used to cover coiled baskets. The bead designs were geometric during the nineteenth century, but figurative motifs became increasingly important in the twentieth century. The Plateau bead workers used triangles, diamonds, squares, and crosses to create geometric designs, and the figurative patterns incorporate floral motifs, eagles, and the U.S. flag, among many other patterns.

Carving

Figures, grave marker totems, scoops, and small bowls were carved of wood and horn, reflecting influences from the neighboring people in the Northwest Coast cultural area. Human figures carved of wood represented ancestral spirits or beings, and shaman’s wands included anthropomorphic forms. Small wooden bowls included figures carved in relief on the surfaces as well as decorative patterns of parallel or serrated lines. Occasionally figures were carved in three dimensions on the sides of bowls. The handles of scoops and spoons were carved with animal and human figures. The handles of wood-carving tools were themselves elaborately carved.

Bibliography

Coe, Ralph T. Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art. Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson Gallery Foundation, 1977.

Feder, Norman. American Indian Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1965.

Kehoe, Alice B. North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992.

Linn, Natalie. The Plateau Bag: A Tradition in Native American Weaving. Kansas City, Kans.: Johnson County Community College, Gallery of Art, 1994.

Penney, David W. Art of the American Indian Frontier. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992.