Museum Purchase: Helen Thurston Ayer Fund.

Coiled tan basket with brown, triangle-like designs. The bark design elements are woven in briar root, which has limited distribution in California. While it is a difficult material to trim and work with it is a favorite material of Mary Azbil and she used it especially on baskets she made for family and friends. The design layout requires a great deal of planning and patience. Presentation baskets are invariably fancier than everyday containers and this basket appears to have never been used for food.

08.491.8679 basket is on the left. This basket has the plume or top-know motif on a cooking basket (bush-ka). These types of baskets with one or two patterns are found in the Maidu community of Mikchopdo at Chico CA. The design is valley quail and grape leaves (the diamonds).The quail pattern is weaver Wilson's best known basket design and can appear in different patterns: some called mountain quail and some, such as seen here, the more common valley quail, where the plume is curved and thick.

Museum Expedition 1908, Museum Collection Fund

08.491.8983 basket is on the right. (See also 08.491.8679 description.) The cooking basket (bush-ka) has the design of the mountain-quail top-knot. This design was Wilson's best known design. The mountain-quail has a very long, straight top knot. Author Sally Bates suggests that this design may have been favored as the weaver's name, Oymutnee, meant "the sound made by a quail." Baskets such as this one seem to be characteristic of the Maidu community of Mikchopedo at Chico, CA.