Traditional Alaska Native baskets are woven with grass, bark, or root fibers or
combinations of these. (See baleen section for baleen baskets.) Other materials such as wool, beaks, claws, skin, dyes of many colors, glass and plastic beads may be woven into the basket for decoration. These basketry fibers are chemically composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin (as is wood and paper). It is the characteristics of these chemical constituents that give a basket its physical and chemical properties.