Feature Article

The History of Hösig di Basketmaking

© 2004 By Charlotte Meares
Photography © 2004 Lorran Meares, All Rights Reserved

The Wounaan and Emberá Indians, who weave fine baskets and call the Darién home, were once collectively called Chocó, since they originally migrated in the late 1700s from the Colombian province of Chocó.  Some 3,000 years ago, they spoke the same language.  Today they share only a fraction of their linguistic base and communicate in Spanish.  And, seeing themselves as unique groups, both now prefer to be identified as Wounaan or Emberá and find the label Chocó distasteful.

The Wounaan name for the original, fine traditional coil-construction baskets made of palm fiber is hösig di.  To create their contemporary baskets weavers sew silk-fine strands of the black palm Astrocaryum standleyanum, called chunga, colored with vegetal and organic dyes, over coils of Carludovica palmate, called naguala.

The craft of basket making was passed since earliest times from mother to daughter. According to a number of early collectors and Margo M. Callaghan, author of the 2002 booklet Darién Rainforest Basketry: Baskets of the Wounaan and Emberá Indians from the Darién Rainforest of Panamá, baskets prior to 1982 were sparsely decorated and far from the elaborate, labor-intensive creations so coveted today by collectors worldwide.

The evolution from craft to art marked by the clock of indigenous life was abrupt. Little more than two decades ago a professor studying Chocó language groups, an early collector and a gallery owner dedicated to seeing the Wounaan prosper set into motion a new economic course for these forest people.  Encouraged by Ron Binder of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Stuart Warner, and Llori Gibson, the Wounaan began to impose onto the new baskets visually imaginative pictorial elements, bird, flower and animal designs as well as geometrics borrowed from pre-Colombian pottery, textiles and the patterns of body painting.  By 1990 these more-dynamic pieces made their way out of the Darién in dugout canoes and began to filter into galleries and private collections—first in the United States, then abroad.

Compared to most art forms, little has been written about Panamá’s indigenous basketry, and its original functions are still unclear.  Evidence of the existence of pottery as early as 2000 b.c. in the Amazon Basin and similar regions, and the discovery of abundant pottery shards by Spaniards who debarked onto the coast of Panamá, implies that the Wounaan didn’t need baskets as vessels to transport and store water.  Apparently they had other uses.

A number of tribal leaders suggest, says Callaghan, that the earlier baskets most likely had lids and secreted small treasures and precious objects—possibly items solely dedicated to curing ceremonies or for use by spiritual elders.  Most likely bone needles were fashioned to sew the baskets.  Once steel needles could be acquired, they became valuable tools.

An estimated 6,000 Wounaan and 12,000 Emberá inhabit the Darién tropical rainforest lowland, where more than 160 inches of rain falls annually. In parts of the neighboring Chocó of Colombia, another 12,000 Wounaan live in lush forests with up to 400 inches of rain annually.

It has been said that the Wounaan are the originators of the emerging artform while the Emberá are imitators, and many gallery owners in North America and Europe concur that the Wounaan excel in both technique and design.  However, individual Emberá weavers compete for fine workmanship.  Our collection is almost entirely Wounaan.

One of the most most defensive trees to encounter in the Darién is Astrocaryum standleyanum.  Chunga to the Wounaan, this black palm protects itself with vicious spines up to six inches long.

The hard black wood from the chunga is prized for house posts, and the leaves are used in curandero ceremonies.  According to elders, their ancient ancestors used strong rope braided from chunga to tie demons that chased them to the exposed roots of trees along the river.  When the water level rose, the demons would drown.

Only the young, tender emerging leaves at the top of the spiny-trunked chunga is used to create hösig di.  Historically, the entire tree had to be felled, and its trunk was either used or left to become more organic material on the forest floor.  As weavers and village leaders began to recognize the potential for economic disaster if the chunga palms were decimated, increasingly sustainable harvesting practices—such as the use of tall ladders leaning a safe distance from the fierce, impaling spines, scythe-like blades attached to long poles, and replanting—are being developed and implemented. 

Chunga is so closely linked to Wounaan tradition and daily life, Callaghan says, that each basket begins its creation with an inherent spiritual quality.  In fact, in an article written by Stuart Warner and published in the summer 1996 issue of Native Peoples magazine, he refers to the Wounaan as “spirit weavers.”

Warner states that the Wounaan Indian women have clearly emerged as the most masterful basket weavers in Panamá.  Quoting anthropologist Andrew Hunter Whiteford, then curator at the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, and respected expert in Native American baskets, as proclaiming “The Wounaan coiled baskets are not only creative in design, but are technically among the finest I have seen.”  And, indeed, collectors are finding Wounaan baskets rival the finest in the world.

So expertly woven are they that Armand Labbé, formerly of the Bowers Museum of Santa Ana, California, compared their quality to the well-known early 20th century baskets of the Chemohuevi Indians.  We think you’ll find Wounaan basketry a wonderful addition to your collection.