Panamanian Bat Basket

HH has a lovely 10” tall Panamanian basket made by indigenous Darién Rainforest artists in the Wounaan tradition; you will see a lifelike bat design woven into the fibers. I would like to tell you that these naturalistic designs have been part of the tradition for thousands of years, but that would be misleading. Not until two European scholars visited the tribe in the 1980s did these baskets bear portrayals of local animals, insects, plants, flowers, trees, bords and iguana. These baskets through the ages were utilitarian and non-embellished, used for storing for water, precious stones, and foodstuffs. The STYLE of the baskets didn’t change through the years – as the forms were passed down from mother to daughter – but when the two scholars saw the natural beauty of the forms, they convinced the weaver women that they, the scholars, could sell those baskets if they added design elements from the rainforest or from ancient Pre-Columbian ceramic decorative elements. The weavers were asked to commemorate their history on the baskets. To encourage the market for such baskets, the women who formerly wove out of necessity and storage were renamed “Spirit-Weavers.” Thus, tradition was co-opted; but the new “tradition” grew a worldwide market.

The fibers which make up the baskets have, from time immemorial, been sourced from rainforest reeds and palm fronds. The chunga fiber of the black palm is a favorite of the weavers, who stitch fine silk black palm fronds called Werregue, colored with vegetable dyes, over the base coil of Naguala palm. The colors for the designs are produced with natural extracts of plants, roots, berries and seed pods, fruits, flowers, and leaves. The Woun Meu (the native language of the Wounaan people) name for these traditional coil constructed palm fiber baskets is “hösig di.” 

Almost every cultural group on the planet has made baskets, and almost every cultural group has made masks, whether masks are used for social bonding through traditional rituals, or to invoke supernatural powers. I found it fascinating that people during the COVID pandemic who were masked seemed less observant of society’s rules of polite decorum! Masks either present a new face to the outside world or hide a face from the outside world. The Wounaan masks were used in the past to serve a priestly function, to allow the wearer to access higher powers. Today these masks are sold in the international marketplace for decorative purposes, and the spirit figures, woven of fibers, are entertainment. Wounaan ritual masks formerly had been a private dance prop for the people and were worn by a spiritual leader. Embera shaman incorporated animal and natural figures into woven masks from the visages of birds, horses, cats of all kinds, monkeys, toucans, bears, anteaters, parrots, and deer. These spirit animals represented various archetypes or attributes of the beasts for a ritual purpose, with the figures representing the cultural tradition of the Embera, an indigenous rainforest Amerindian group. Once used in healing and cleansing dances for the Wounaan and Embera Peoples, there’s a shop online that will make you an Embera mask in the form of your dog for wall décor –a far cry from the animal spirit masks used to dispel an evil spirit considered responsible for a family member’s severe illness.

HH asks the value of her bat basket. It’s hard to say, because these are fairly new pieces and available online from $100-250 in this size. She writes me that she purchased it for $100 because she suspected it may have been Native American made, which it is not, and she suspected it was antique (over 100 years old), which it is not. There is no antique market for these baskets with designs, such as we find in the Native America basket weaving tradition, which has remained a feature of specific Tribal customs for centuries. 

This basket is an interesting problem in valuation, because it is a stylized version of what the “developed” world thinks of as “primitive” traditional basketry. Strangely, this modern art form has a growing market because of its artistry. They are truly beautifully made, and many are attributed to some of Panama’s best weavers. Some of the larger baskets with more intricate naturalistic designs can sell for thousands of dollars. I wonder how much of that income is retained by the weavers, although online sellers claim the money benefits the People…