Trinket Basket Decorated with the Initials R.T. and a Figure of a Baseball Player
Mother of a Raphael Tortes, Luiseño, unknown dates
Luiseño (Luiseno)
California culture
collected 1905 or 1907
Grass, sumac, rush, and sea blight; coiled, grass foundation, counter-clockwise direction
Overall: 3 5/16 × 4 13/16 × 6 7/8 in. (8.4 × 12.2 × 17.4 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Bequest of Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill
46.17.9314
Geography
Place Made: Riverside, United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Basket
Research Area
Native American
Native American: California Culture
Not on view
Label
This basket was once owned by Raphael Tortes, one of the thousands of Native children forced into government boarding schools in the 20th century. The figures on the basket are baseball players, suggesting that Raphael was a member of the baseball team at the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California. Made and given to him by his mother, this basket weaves together a story of cultural collision through its Euro-American subject matter and Native artistic form.
Yet, this basket was not just a symbolic trinket by which to remember home but also something to sell if money was short, and, indeed, Raphael sold this basket to Frank and Clara Churchill, who gave it to the museum in 1946. His mother’s inclusion of figures playing America’s favorite pastime likely made the basket more appealing to these white collectors. Baseball’s popularity also made it an ideal vehicle for assimilating Native children into a collective American national identity.
From the 2024 exhibition, A Space for Dialogue 117, Sports Culture: Gender, Belonging, and Nationhood, Madyson Buchalski '24, Conroy Intern
Course History
ARTH 82, History of Museums and Collecting, Joy Kenseth, Spring 2012
WRIT 5, On Poor Taste, William Boyer, Winter 2015
ARTH 83, History of Museums and Collecting, Joy Kenseth, Spring 2015
Exhibition History
A Space for Dialogue 117, Sports Culture: Gender, Belonging, and Nationhood, Madyson Buchalski '24, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 9 - May 5, 2024
Native Ecologies: Recycle, Resist, Protect, Sustain, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-July 15, 2019
Survival/Art/History: American Indian Collections from the Hood Museum of Art, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 18, 2000-April 7, 2002.
Publication History
Tom Willman, "Sherman Institute in the Golden Age of Native American Sport", in Riverside Historical Society Journal, Riverside, CA, 25, December 2018, pp. 28-42, ill. p. 32.
Provenance
Made by Mrs. Tortese [mother of Raphael Tortese, possibly Tortes], a student at the Sherman Indian School, Riverside, California]; selected the Sherman Indian School's Superintendent Harwood H. Hall (1859-1928) for Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and BIA Inspector Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), Riverside, California, 1905 or 1907; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.
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