Turtle Shaped Coushatta Pine Needle Hanging Effigy Basket decorative platter along the seam

along the seam

Handwoven of beach grass

) extremely intriguing

yellow and pinkish birds -- one on each side of the vase -- at first seem more like abstract passages than figurative forms

Turtle Shaped Coushatta Pine Needle Hanging Effigy Basket decorative platter along the seamThis wonderful little turtle shaped Coushatta hanging effigy basket is made of coiled Louisiana native pine needles sewn together with raffia. (The Coushatta are a matrilineal society native to Southwest Louisiana recognized as a sovereign nation in 1973; today most of its thousand or so members live in Elton, LA, the seat of the tribal government.) I believe this particular basket may have been made by Marjorie Abbey Battise, a member of a family of