Ciosan from Uist, probably made from marram grass wrapped with willow or bramble. Highland Folk MuseumQP4
The ciosan
The ciosan is a small, closely woven basket, formerly made on the Western Isles and along the west coast. It is a coiled basket made from sea-bent (marram grass), or sometimes straw. The coils are stitched together using twine made from rush, marram, even split willow or bramble, or bought twine. Unlike in Orkney and Shetland, where similar baskets called toigs are still made, there are no recent accounts of how or why these baskets were made in the Hebrides. Examples in the Highland Folk Museum are usually described as bannock baskets, but accounts from older sources in the Scottish Life Archive describe the ciosan as ‘A meal measure presented to a bride on her wedding day. Diameters range from 7 inches, 4 inches deep to 12 inches high and a mouth about 18 inches wide. It holds about half a stone of meal. Common in Lewis about 50 years ago (from 1950s).’
Ciosan Highland Folk Museum QP4 Detail
If you have any information about this kind of basket, or how they were used, please contact the editor of this page sjb20@st-andrews.ac.uk
Here is a gallery of ciosans
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- Ciosan from straw and string. Highland Folk Museum, QP86
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- Ciosan from straw and string, detail. Highland Folk Museum, QP85
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- Ciosan from straw and string. Highland Folk Museum QP85
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- Ciosan from bent grass and string, base detail. Highland Folk Museum QP7
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- Ciosan, bent grass and string. Highland Folk Museum QP7
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- A most remarkable ciosan, Wester Ross, detail. Highland Folk Museum QP 6
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- A most remarkable ciosan, Wester Ross. Highland Folk Museum QP 6
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- Bent grass ciosan from Wester Ross, detail. Highland Folk Museum QP 5
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- Bent grass ciosan from Wester Ross. Highland Folk Museum QP 5
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- Unidentified ciosan, detail of base weaving. Highland Folk Museum
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- Unidentified ciosan, Highland Folk Museum
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- Unidentified ciosan, Highland Folk Museum
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- Ciosan. Uig Historical Society Museum
