Wukchumni Yokuts Friendship Basket, attributed to Mary Dick Topino (1863 or 1868-1923), known as "Mrs Britches"

Bob Adams, Tucson, Arizona

American Private collects ion, acquired from the above on July 23, 2010

Wayne A. Thompson and Eugene S. Meieran, California Indian Basketry: Ikons of the Florescence, San Diego, 2021, p. 251, fig. 473

This masterpiece of California basketry is attributed to the weaver Mary Dick Topino, one of the greatest artists in the history of Native American basketweaving. Of a type known as a Friendship Basket, it centers upon a depiction of looping human figures joining hands: in an elaborate composition of two rows of alternating male and female figures, forty-seven in all, encircling the basket in concentric rings bordered by black lines above and below the figures. This particular basket is distinctive for the row of twenty-five bears, silhouetted in profile just below the rim. Four evenly spaced sections of black ticking accent the rim.

“Mrs. Britches” was so called after the nickname “Big Britches” given to her third husband, Jim Topino, who was known for wearing secondhand clothing, including too-large trousers. She was the daughter of Chief Chappo and Lizzy (Chah-Dah) Chappo, also a weaver, of the Wukchumni Yokuts; Mary’s daughter Aida Icho (or Wahnomkot, 1878-1964) carried on the family tradition and became a master comparable in skill to her mother, working in classic Yokuts designs.