The need for food containers in early human communities led to the “invention” of basketry. The first baskets may have been made of animal skin or twigs; but soon evolved into the use of more suitable materials such as vegetable fibres. Because of the organic materials used in making baskets, most of the earliest examples have been lost through decay. A few examples have been preserved but only in areas of extremely dry climate, such as in Egypt, in Chile and Peru in South America, and in the southwestern United States. Radiocarbon tests of woven artifacts establish the existence and the use of baskets in Nevada, Utah and Oregon as early as 9000 to 700 B.C., and that Egyptians of the pre-dynastic period (c. 5000 B.C.) used baskets. Early literary sources, such as the Bible, mention baskets and other woven articles such as the “ark of bulrushes” in which the infant Moses was hidden (Exod. 2: 3, 53); baskets were used to bring the tithes to the temple, and Matthew talked of “twelve baskets full.” (Matt. 14: 20.) In the study of American Indian baskets there are three major factors to be considered: the first is the tribe which produced the basket; the second is the language, since inter-marriage among tribes produced varying cultures; the third factor is the weave of the basket itself. For example, the five major weaves used by American Indians are: Coil, Twine, Twill, Wicker and Imbricated. To the novice there is the obvious difference in shape, color and texture of a collection of Indian baskets viewed in a museum. To the collector there is the hint of the whole pattern of life of the Indians who produced the basket. The materials used in any particular basket reflect the locale of the tribe which produced it, for the Indian used materials that were at hand. In the case of the _Cherokees_, a native variety of red honey suckle produced runners that were used by that tribe in Virginia in a wicker-type weave. In North Carolina, the same tribe utilized the Japanese honeysuckle, while in Oklahoma the tribe used buckbrush runners. In Arizona, the _Pimas_ wove split willow twigs and the black Martyna or “Devil’s Claw” of their desert lands. It is the Indian woman, not the man, who makes baskets (except for few instances, i.e., the _Papago_ carrying basket). They are made either for utilitarian use or for ceremonial use. Basket designs are not taught to the craftsman nor are they copied from a pattern book. They are created by the individual weaver who is an artist of great ability. The artist-craftsman must first develop a manner of weaving that will form a shape adequate for the basket’s final use. She must then find suitable materials in her area for this weaving project. This step completed, she mentally creates a decorative design and invents a method of weaving it into the basket.