Form and Function
Historically, most larger Columbia River Plateau twined bags were used to gather and store various types of edible roots. Native American tribes who lived in the region used these for food during the long winter months. However, as increased contact with white settlers led to major changes in the culture of the Plateau peoples over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries, the range of bag forms and functions gradually expanded.
In particular, there was a shift toward forms like handbags, purses, and other small personal bags whose shapes were better suited to the modern lifestyle. Although many of the bags on this site originally fulfilled some sort of utilitarian purpose, the presence of carefully executed decorative designs on even the earliest examples cautions us to avoid a strictly functional interpretation of their role in their creators’ daily lives. This is not to say, though, that thinking about functionality is not a useful pursuit for considering the reasons for and use of bags:
Woven in one piece in loose-warp (off-loom) twining and therefore seamless, such a large bag could be folded away when empty and would expand to hold the great quantities of dried food roots a family needed for the winter. It met the specific requirements of families who had many places of residence, moving from one to the other with the seasons.