Large White Mountain Apache Burden Basket Native American Deer Clan 16” Dia VTG

Description

We lived and worked on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation Near Greer Arizona.  This basket was a trade item and my basket maker friend authenticated it as a Deer Clan (I originally thought the deer were elk).  This basket depicts 3 Pairs of deer and a single young deer around the basket.  Very detailed and unique.  Ive seen a couple others in galleries but none of this quality or definition.  It is special.
Her name is Birdie and she tried to teach me to weave baskets,  mine kind of leaned to one side, she took it home and had her brother bring me the completed and repaired basket.  That is the one that replaces this basket for sentimental reasons.
The Apache I have known would not be interested in selling their baskets or beadwork because it is just not in their culture to do so generally.  I have bought horses from them but the baskets were acquired as trade or gift.
This makes them so very rare indeed.  I have seen a couple with the deer image but generally modern and lacking the detail.  This basket is extraordinary.
History of burden baskets:  They are hand made from willow variety branches from along the White or Black rivers generally.  The branches are soaked in water, then they are split into flat reeds (using their teeth to peel the branch).  This basket is from the 1970's era.  Currently some baskets include other colorful fibers like red yucca root and devils claw.
The leather strips are ofter useful if needed.  The jingles (tin at the end of the leather strips) make noise and scare the birds away from fruit and other food in the basket.
These baskets are used with the long loop (tumb line)over a person's forehead and the basket on their back, sometimes lined, where they rest while picking berries or other crops that can be thrown over the shoulder.  Babies are even carried in the baskets at times.  Burden baskets were and still are part of the Apache girl's coming of age ceremony "Sunrise Ceremony".  They are an important part of the ceremony where they are filled with gifts and food for the girl's Godmother.  They are used to mark the course of the young girl's race, a part of the ceremony during which the girl must run Eastward at dawn, a supplication to the sun to instill in the girl the same vitality as it does with all living things.
Measurements are approximately  16" in Diameter at the rim
13" in Depth
12" deer skin leather strips with tin jingles
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