This object is on permanent display in the South Florida People & Environments exhibit, located in the “Indian People in South Florida Today” gallery.
Story
This basket is just magnificent. We were very honored to receive it in 1997 as a gift from the Elders of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It’s beautifully made of coiled sweetgrass and colorful cotton thread, topped with a doll head made of palmetto fiber. Agnes Billie Cypress made the basket and Lucy Johns made the lid. The Seminoles believe that a woman who is still of child-bearing age should not close her own basket, so it’s traditional for a younger woman who makes a basket to ask an elder woman to make the lid.
Bill Marquardt
Curator, South Florida Archaeology & Ethnography
Director, Randell Research Center
Florida Museum of Natural History
Summary
Coiled Basket With Doll Lid
Made by Agnes Billie Cypress (basket) and Lucy Johns (lid), Immokalee
Gift to the Museum from the Seminole People of Florida, 1997
Exhibit Area