Mission Baskets

Additional Terms

Mission Baskets

Originated by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber in 1922, the classification "Mission" basket generally refers to those manufactured by people on the southern coast of California; namely the Chumash, Gabrieleno, Luiseno, Juaneno, and Digueno. Most museums (including the Portland Art Museum) have continued to use the misnomer "Mission" to classify Southern California baskets, misleading in terms of region and time period.

The Franciscans established twenty-one missions in California, recruiting from more than twenty tribal groups between San Diego and the San Francisco Bay and inland communities. The Franciscan Mission system lasted from 1769 to 1834 on the central and south coast of California. Very few of the baskets made during that period are extant. Therefore, baskets identified as Mission in most collections are actually made by descendants of people who lived at or near the Missions—but only the descendants of the southernmost ten missions are identified by Kroeber as Mission. Additionally, even among those ten groups there are many cultural differences which the term Mission has blurred.

As museums work to more adequately identify these beautiful baskets based on their materials and iconographic distinctions, new categories that reflect geographic location and Tribal names will emerge. We have begun this work at the Portland Art Museum.

Native American art