Sweetgrass Baskets and Sweet Music

We have had company for a few days, friends from Connecticut, and we took them around to see some local history.  One day we went to Charleston, traveling "the sweetgrass basketmakers' highway" through the Hamlin Community of families who were slaves from the area plantations.

 

Sweetgrass basket makers brought their skills with them 300 years ago on the slave ships from Sierra Leone, Africa.  

The baskets today are almost identical to the shukublay baskets of Sierra Leone where some are woven so tightly they are able to hold water.

Men used native materials such as grass, palmetto fronds, and long-leaf pine needles to make large baskets to winnow rice, hold shellfish, vegetables, and later cotton.  

 

Women made the baskets for use in their cabins.

Basket-making was often a job given to slaves who were too old to work long days in the hot sun.

Sweetgrass baskets have the loveliest smell, kind of like a faint whiff of warm green hay.  I can never pass a basket without sniffing it.

 

The baskets on the right were about $180 each at Lucinda's stand and the same baskets in Charleston? Add $100! 

In the evenings we were treated to some homemade music with a professional musician, Sarah.

The Writer always loves having someone to make music with, and I am very good at humming along and providing forgotten words!