2021

Navajo Two-Toned Wedding Basket

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:40.00 USD Estimated At:60.00 - 80.00 USD
Navajo Two-Toned Wedding Basket
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From the Nick and Suzanne Nicholas Collection. This Navajo Two-Toned Wedding Basket, measures 11'' x 1.25'', Navajo ceremonial baskets are used in weddings, girls' puberty rites, and traditional healing ceremonies. Made of sumac and coiled from left to right, they are usually from 12 to 14 inches in diameter. The rim of the ceremonial basket is finished with a diagonally plaited herringbone pattern. The overall design is always broken at one point, allowing a pathway from center to periphery, and the last coil of the basket ends at the point where the break occurs. In ceremonial practice, the gap in the basket's design is always oriented to the east. Traditional ceremonial baskets always include an open pathway from the center to the periphery. Navajo basket-weavers refer to the opening in the basket's design as ''the way out.'' It represents both the Navajo people's exit from one world and reemergence to the next, as well as the ever-forward progression of individual human thought. Without this pathway, the basket weaver's thought process and creative energy risk blockage.