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Tucked in a quiet corner of
Connecticut is the Mashantucket Pequot
Museum and Research Center, which opened to the public on August 11, 1998. The first
weekend of August 2001, the museum hosted the first annual Native Basket Makers Market and
Fair. Native basket makers from around the northeast gathered for two days of basket
sales, demonstrations, discussions and activities. Eighty-eight-year-old Katie Thompson
(Akwesasne Mohawk) headed this distinguished group of basket makers that included Clara
Keezer (Passamaquoddy), Jeanne Brink (Abenaki), Loretta Oxendine (Lumbee) and Paula Love
Thorne (Penobscot).
Many makers offered their baskets for
sale and demonstrated black ash woodsplint and sweetgrass basketry in a large sun-filled
indoor courtyard. Birch bark, white oak and pine needle basketmaking were also
demonstrated. Makers traveled from around the northeast. Many basketmakers came from Maine
where black ash basketry is still widely practiced.
Additional activities took place
outside under tents. Children were encouraged to weave paper baskets and use potato stamps
to print traditional designs on their work. The methodic and melodic sound that is easily
recognized by splint basketmakers everywhere rung out as Jesse LaRocque demonstrated the
process of pounding a black ash log to release the woodsplints. The heat of the summer
afternoon did not slow Jesse down as he pounded, scraped and split an armful of satiny
splints.
The market and fair was a two day
event, but the museum is also host to a magnificent exhibit of Pomo basketry, running
until September 3, 2001. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology is responsible for this traveling exhibit titled "Pomo
Indian Basket Weavers, Their Baskets and the Art Market". It features more than
120 baskets, made a century ago by Native American weavers for the curio market. The
exhibit focuses on a group of fifty Pomo Indian Basket Weavers who worked during the early
years of the 20th century. It examines the market in which they sold their creations. The
exhibition is drawn primarily from the Museum's unusually well-documented California
Indian basket collections. A special issue of Expedition is available
detailing these phenomenal baskets, the makers and the art market of the time. This
exhibit is well worth taking a long drive to see.
Next page > Photo gallery of native basketmakers >
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