Basketry in the B.V.I.

People have been making baskets longer than they have been making clay pots. The process of gathering fibres, vines or reeds and weaving them together to form lightweight containers has been vital to most world cultures - in practical, economic and spiritual ways.  By bringing together the key basket and hat makers in the B.V.I. we hope to draw attention to their cultural importance in an effort to preserve the craft, and as an encouragement for younger people to realize the value of learning these skills.

The origins of basketry in the BVI have not yet been precisely defined. Most research suggests a merger of influences – between African, Amerindian, and European basketry traditions.  Certainly baskets have been in constant use in the BVI for thousands of years – Amerindian inhabitants used them in all walks of life – for fishing (fish-traps), trading, carrying provisions and so on. Later, in plantation times, basketry was also used to protect glass demijons of rum, at the same time providing handles to enable them to be carried more easily. It may have been from this that the art of weaving around small bottles was derived – an art that until quite recently provided work for dozens of ladies in East End employed by the bay rum merchants of St Thomas. In fact, by the mid-twentieth century bottle-covering and hat-making on a commercial level, became the mainstay of the economy of East End, Tortola.

For the Carib communities of Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent, Trinidad and Guyana weaving and working with fibres has been essential to life for thousands of years, different materials being used for such varied purposes as making hammocks, sieves and ‘coulevre’ for the preparation of cassava, as well as for storage containers, and many other purposes.  Caribs are most famous for their ‘waterproof’ baskets – a pre-plastic technique for keeping things dry in the rainforest. Such containers are made by fitting two baskets tightly inside each other with a piece of balisia (wild banana) leaf between them.

In Tortola the most commonly used material for baskets is the ‘hoop’ vine, a strong fibrous vine up to three inches thick that snakes up to the tops of trees in most of the ghuts. Only two people still make the strong market baskets for which Tortola is well known.

For hat-making the ladies use the increasingly scarce ‘white palm’ gathered mainly from Guana Island and the north shore of Tortola. When demand was high ‘white palm’ – as well as the dyes to color it - was  imported from St Barts and St Thomas, the latter still being a source in times of need. ‘Broom’ palm gathered on Scrub Island and elsewhere provides naturally brown