However, they are most well known for their coiled baskets woven with yucca cactus fiber. I can only imagine how a basketmaker might have gotten the idea to start weaving these miniature baskets with horsehair. Perhaps the basketweaver was alone on a horse in this wide-open country and took up the challenge of working with the materials available. Perhaps an especially facile basketweaver wanted to show off her skills in a new way by accomplishing the seemingly impossible task of weaving these miniature baskets. In any case, the horsehair basket illustrates the ingenuity, the creativity, and the adaptability of the traditional artist.
Baskets are containers of things, but they also can contain ideas and meaning.
An object smaller than the tip of a finger can contain concepts as large as artistic imagination, individual identity, and cultural resilience and adaptation. V. Conclusion Yunnan Province, with its rich and diverse lifeways and natural landscapes, offers significant opportunities for sustainable cultural, ecological and economic development. No scientist, no economist, no government official can measure the impoverishment we suffer if we lose our sense of beauty and meaning in life. As development occurs, it would be wise to pay particular attention to the conservation of the traditional and ethnically-specific heritages of Yunnan s many people. Development, economic or otherwise, will occur in the context of culture and will be defined by cultural attitudes and beliefs.