I-M-234 Western Mono sifter.
The Western Mono (also known as the Monache Indians) traditionally were a Paiute speaking people of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. They migrated from the Great Basin region (Mono Lake and Owens Valley) of eastern California to the western flank area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains south of Yosemite in the North Fork River region. Although the Mono Lake peoples had a pre-migration coiled basket tradition, their coiled basketry changed after their arrival in the North Fork region due to contacts with their neighbors, the Yokuts. As a consequence, Mono and Yokuts baskets can be quite similar. These similarities, however, are confined mostly to the coiled baskets. The Mono had a well established twining tradition of their own which they brought with them and most of the influences were in switching to new materials more commonly found in Yokuts territory. These sifters or winnowing trays were called “to’o tiua” by the Mono. This example is of the “all redbud” type which is a distinctly Mono type not found among the Yokuts except when traded to them. This weaver added a distinct design quality to this basket by peeling some of the redbud rods to reveal the white under wood.
The twining technique employed is two stick diagonal twining using whole California redbud rods (Cercis) for the warp and split redbud with the outer bark left on for the red and white weft. 11 inches long by 9 1/2 inches w. by 3 inches deep.
A very attractive example. Circa 1930. $595.00