Along the sides of the road on Rt. 17 in Mt. Pleasant SC are odd-looking wooden structures, usually made from 10 to 20 weather beaten boards. They don't seem to have a reason to be there until around 10am when someone arrives and begins to fill all the horizontal boards with a variety of sweet grass baskets. They are the Gullah people. Their ancestors brought the art of basket making from Africa when they were captured and forced into slavery along the rice-producing coast of South Carolina.
Sweet grass baskets are collected as works of art. If you stop to look at them, you can watch as a basket is being assembled. Sometimes pine needles are added to give a reddish brown design when placed next to the long wheat colored strands of sweet grass. The entire basket is sewed together with one-quarter inch strips from palm leaves. A basket takes three, four and even more days to produce.
I bought one that looks like a serving bowl. It has a lip around the top and a handle. Some are flat and can be used as serving trays. They are made in the old traditional shapes of their ancestors or in new shapes for modern usage.
A small basket, three inches wide with a handle, might sell for $20 or more. Large baskets with complicated design can command prices over a hundred dollars. The ladies are willing to bargain. I paid $65 for the one I bought.
Runaway slaves brought the art to the Seminole Indians in Florida and thy developed a variation using heavy colorful cord to sew the basket together. When we toured one of the reservations, an Indian woman was demonstrating making a basket that looked like a vase. She intended to add a lip, but we asked if she would finish it and sell it to us as is. She said yes and we agreed on a price of $60.