Name/Title
Letter from Grace Nicholson to Harry GeorgeEntry/Object ID
Q1430.635.41FDescription
Vol II pg. 41F
Letter from Grace Nicholson to Harry George regarding baskets she has shared with Harry and the provenance of the baskets.
May 27, 1909.
Mr. Harry L. George,
201 Saxton Bank Bldg.,
St Jopseh, Mo.,
Dear Sir: –
Please accept my thanks for your check of $61.20 in full for the last lot of Baskets sent you.
I am also pleased to place aside for you the Mesa Grande snake basket, retaining same until later when I may be able to send you some other specimens, which I am quite sure you would appreciate, as my buyer, Mr. Rentman, is in the mountains now and effects to find some scarce material.
I will take time shortly to look over some of my film and have a few photos struck off for you which may be of value to your collection. As i believe you are a thoro student and wish to make your collection as valuable as possible from every standpoint.
In reply to your inquiry about points in Alaska where you might be able to get information. Would state that I find most of the information furnished me from traders and local collectors to be of very little value. No two of them seem to agree upon any one point. We find that personal work in the field is the only method of obtaining reliable information. For this reason I have not done any business with parties in Alaska for nearly three years. In fact it is very difficult to secure any good old Baskets in Alaska and I depend on purchasing private collections to secure most of my specimens, especially the old native dyes.
Regarding the #57. There is no question about the Basket sent being Zuni. it is very nearly the same shape as the Basket you refer to which was found at the Pueblo of Sia on the rio Grande River, N. M. I have personally inspected the Basket mentioned in the National Museum, and also carefully studied all like specimens, and have secured a few very fine old Baskets of this class which the collectors found at the old Pueblos and therfore ascribed as the work of the Pueblo Indians. Upon my last trip I secured the largest and finest specimen ever found and which sold immediately to a Pasadena collector. These jar shaped Baskets were undoubtedly ceremonial and I believe were made by the Utes and traded to the Pueblo Indians, as the work, material and finish is identical with other old Ute work which is unquestioned.
The Pueblo Indians made very few Baskets but they were and are great traders and still obtain all their Baskets from the Jicarilla Apaches. They go among the Cheyennes and other northern tribes trading grain and other food stuffs for buck skin, beadwork and other articles.
I sincerely hope that next winter you may be able to visit Pasadena, and not only look over my collection of Baskets but take time to examine the hundreds of photographs we have taken on our collecting trips.
Very truly yours,
Grace NicholsonSubject
Nicholson, Grace
Pasadena, California
Basket -- Snake
Mesa Grande
Zuni
Pueblo
Apache -- Jicarilla
CheyenneSubject Person/Organization
Harry L. George Collection
