Side outline shapes of Maidu baskets (after Dixon). The plan of virtually all Maidu baskets was circular. Twined storage baskets are up to three feet in diameter for holding seed, meal, etc. Open twined construction was used for storage of whole acorns, fish, and meat. Flatish circular basketry plaque was for “vibration sifting”.
| FOOD BOWL DIPPING GENERAL UTILITY | STORAGE COOKING |
| FOOD BOWL DIPPER GENERAL UTILITY | STORAGE COOKING |
| COOKING | STORAGE COOKING |
| FOOD BOWL DIPPER GENERAL UTILITY | STORAGE COOKING |
| COOKING | BURDEN |
| FOOD BOWL DIPPER GENERAL UTILITY | STORAGE COOKING |
| TRAYS or large BASKET COVER | TRAY or BASKET COVER |
Some utility baskets were undecorated, being made merely of pine root and willow, or, if coiled, of redbud and willow. However, most baskets bore some designs. They were all named and were inspired by the objects of nature about these outdoor peoples, and not the product of their imaginations. Nevertheless, the designs are quite stylized, often to the extent that recognition of the inspiration is difficult or impossible.
In the case of twined baskets the designs were made by substituting outer redbud bark for squaw-grass to produce a dull red instead of the white overlaid stitches of the rest of the basket. As a result of the double twining technique the designs were seen equally well on the inside and the outside of each basket. Black designs were of overlaid maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) stems. However, mountain Maidu also used common bracken fern (Pteris aquilinum) for black designs. Indians to the north of the Atsugewi used roots and stems of certain sedges treated with charcoal and mud or with ashes and water to produce basketry materials of black and of warm henna-brown coloration respectively. These were used on occasion by Atsugewi. The bear-grass, redbud, and maidenhair fern decorative materials were most commonly used by all tribes of this area. Atsugewi are the only local Indians to have used feathers to adorn their baskets. They used the shiny iridescent blue-green feathers from the necks of male mallard ducks. This was not common, however, and by no means used as often nor developed to the fine art and diversity of the famous Pomo feathered basketry of the Clear Lake region of the California Coast Range. Atsugewi are also believed to have occasionally adorned some basketry work with shell beads and porcupine quills, but this must have been quite rare or more examples would have survived to the present day.
Outer bark of redbud almost always decorated coiled baskets.
Concerning Maidu basketry Dixon states that the vast majority of the articles are of the coiled type, twining technique being used only for burden baskets and hopper or grinding baskets. For the radial ribs of the former they used shoots of hazel (Corylus rostrata var. californica) when available. He points out too, the frequent use of the feather, quail-tip, and arrow-point designs not only among the mountain Maidu, but among all Maidu. A characteristic of this group of Indians also, in contrast to other local tribes, is the tendency to confine one design to a basket rather than combining designs. Maidu employed a wide variety of designs. Many of them represent animals and plants. A considerable number of Maidu patterns exhibit a more or less obscure realism which becomes apparent only after one is informed as to what the design means. The Maidu show a tendency also toward arrangement of design elements in spiral or zigzag lines.
Atsugewi basket, twined and overlaid with bear-grass and maiden hair fern.
