Heritage straw work carries cherished memories.

By Diane Taylor

I carried very little when I left my home on Pine Cay in the early 1980s. At one time, people who felt an emotional attachment to the county or land they had to leave took with them a handful of earth to cherish as fond memory of paths they had walked, people they had known. Packed away in my luggage were Turks & Caicos treasures that came from the earth, which is to say, hand-crafted baskets that were fashioned from grasses and palm leaves that had grown in the soil there—as indeed, I had grown roots in that same soil.

This selection of the author’s cherished Turks & Caicos straw work shows its versatility and durability—after 40 years of use!

Seven in total, these heritage baskets have provided me with a place to keep apples and oranges, to gather snap peas from my garden, to enhance a flower pot, to organize sewing items, and myriad other uses. I wished then, as I wish now, that I knew the names of the women who wove these sturdy baskets. At the time, a friend gave me three as a parting gift, and I bought the other four from someone on Pine Cay, who had bought them from women on North and Middle Caicos.

In addition, there is the large lined bag, with handles and bright orange and yellow flowers embroidered on one side, that Mary Forbes gave me when I visited Sandy Point a few days before my departure. To make this bag, she wove long two-inch-wide “plaits” from palm leaves (while comfy, I imagine, on that blue couch so often visible through her almost-always-open door), then sewed them together to the shape she had in mind. This friendly classy bag has provided me with an ideal place to store shoes and other paraphernalia for feet, like felt insoles, shoe laces, and mink oil for my winter boots.

You might ask, “Have these forty-year-old baskets and bag not disintegrated? Not come apart? Not become frayed and saggy?” If you were to ask such a neophyte question, as I myself might have asked had I not lived with these graceful and well-used baskets for over forty years, I would answer, “Not at all—other than aging richly into a slightly deeper hue.” In fact, I fully expect them to be around for another forty years. Mind you, by then, they will be keeping someone else company—perhaps my niece, who is only fifty-two.

What I especially appreciate about these baskets and bags is the heritage aspect—the wealth of experience and knowledge that those who made them inherited from the early days. That was when their ancestors built sailboats, made bush medicine from wild herbs, fished, farmed, and every necessity was handmade—the woven baskets and bags a prime example. In the earliest days, no money was in circulation; you could not buy household items. People depended on each other, doors were open, and respect for others and the land were survival skills.

I have a vivid memory of a man from Middle Caicos who sometimes worked on Pine Cay and would later become a lawyer. He always carried with him a bottle of thick bright green liquid his mother made for him from plants and herbs. He drank a little every morning, as a “tonic” as he called it. Certainly, among other nutrients, it would have been filled with chlorophyll, which is very close in molecular composition to that of hemoglobin in human red blood cells.

Finely woven straw work emerged from the minds and hands of women on Middle Caicos.

Bambarra on Middle Caicos was one of the villages in the Turks & Caicos Islands where the first finely woven baskets emerged from women’s minds and hands. Some, with an extremely tight weave and lined with pine resin, held water. In West Africa, there is a large ethnic group of people known as the Bambarra, most of whom live in southern Mali, where there is also a village by that same name. The connection between the two Bambarras is very real, with a shipwreck leaving slaves from West Africa stranded on Middle Caicos. The women who began the art of basketry on Middle Caicos brought this skill with them across the Atlantic and adapted it to the types of palms and sea grasses that grow in TCI. Some DNA research has confirmed this.

The Middle Caicos Co-op was created in 1998 with the goal to ensure fair income for the artisans and to preserve this heritage straw work. For many years roughly seventy artisans (average age sixty-five) regularly produced baskets and bags of a remarkable variety. Today the not-for-profit retail shop, located in North Caicos, is active and full of these straw work treasures but only twenty artisans are regularly producing the crafts now.

The painstaking process of collecting, drying and cleaning the raw material (fanner grasses and palm tops), even before the arduous task of sewing, plaiting and weaving the straw crafts, has not widely appealed to younger generations. Today’s artisans range in age from forty to ninety, a solid group of artisans who truly enjoy the labour of creating their baskets and bags. The plan is to soon have an artisan in the shop one day a week working on her craft and answering questions visitors may have.

Heritage straw work, made by artisians from the Middle Caicos Co-op, is available at the Caicos Straw Craft shop on North Caicos.

The Middle Caicos Co-op has evolved into: the Caicos Straw Craft Shop with a large interpretive display; the Caicos Heritage Museum that showcases a gallery of stunningly beautiful black and white photographs and books and cards; and the Boathouse, home to the fleet of hand- carved model sailboats that grace the sea each year at the annual Valentine’s Day Cup on Bambarra Beach.

When I see the Caicos baskets around my house, three on the sewing machine, one on top of the fridge, two by the kitchen window and one on my dresser, I see women sitting with grasses and palmtops around them, perhaps a child or two nearby, their hands busy cutting strips and weaving them just so, to patiently and knowledgably create attractive items that feel warm to the touch.

Back then, and into today, the baskets carry eggs, shells, corn, toys . . . and dreams. Basket after basket, time after time and beyond. They are a cultural tradition that is a vital part of the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands. They are also a part of my own history, as well as just plain good for the soul.

When I hold one of these baskets, or the bag, my fingers are communicating with the fingers of a woman (or yes, an occasional man) who fashioned the fibers into graceful shapes that are part of my present, past, and future. I am grateful to be accompanied by the artisans for a connection to the Turks & Caicos Islands that continues to hold a special spot in my heart.