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Keeping tradition alive: Indian basketmakers gather willow
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Posted by editor Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:08:09 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Ancient traditions were revived in Tehachapi last week when a small group of Native American women walked along local creekbeds gathering willow to make beautiful baskets.

The three women were Mary “Weegi” Claw, her mother Lila Waco McCord and their friend Nora Vasquez. All three are members of the Chemehuevi tribe, which traditionally occupied areas of the Mojave Desert in California and Arizona. Mary and Nora live on Chemehuevi land in Parker, Arizona and Mary’s mother Lila lives in Needles.

The Chemehuevi people are the closest relatives of the Nüwa (Kawaiisu) Indian people of the Tehachapi area, both linguistically and culturally. Nora Vasquez has been in Tehachapi before in association with our local Kawaiisu language program, since she is a speaker of the Chemehuevi language who has been working on a dictionary and other projects to preserve her language.

The three Indian ladies were in Tehachapi as guests of longtime Native American advocate and former state senator Phil Wyman, who made his family’s Antelope Canyon Ranch available to the women for the purposes of gathering willow and other traditional plants. This was particularly appropriate, since Antelope Canyon (in the mountains south of town) was long used by Indian people for harvesting native plants and animals.

The fact that the Chemehuevi is a sister tribe to the Nüwa is evidenced by the similarity of the languages and a history of peaceful cohabitation and intermarriage between the two peoples. Many, many words are similar in both languages and some are actually identical, suggesting close ties that go back for centuries.
Weegi is the chief basketmaker among the three visitors to Tehachapi — her finished creations are highly-prized by collectors and she teaches basketmaking at Arizona Western college, which conducts extension courses in Parker organized through the main campus in Yuma.

Like many Native American practitioners of traditional crafts, Weegi lived with her grandmother and learned the old methods from an earlier generation. Her grandmother, Mary Lou Brown, was a basketmaker of legendary skill and is one of the most highly regarded Chemehuevi basket artisans — Mary Lou Brown’s baskets are in several museums and private collections.

Chemehuevi weavers use willow for both the foundation or core of coiled baskets and for the wrapping material. Kawaiisu weavers tended to use deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens) for the foundation but used willow as wrapping material in an identical fashion to their Chemehuevi neighbors.

The local willow species favored by Tehachapi weavers and gathered last week by the Chemehuevi is Arroyo Willow (Salix lasiolepsis), known puhi-suv-va “green willow” by the Kawaiisu. The word for “willow” in both languages is suv-va.
It is now too late in the season to gather willows around Parker, so the Chemehuevi women were glad to have the opportunity to collect higher-elevation willows that are just now in prime condition for harvest.

Plans are underway to have these talented artists return soon to Tehachapi to gather more materials and so that Weegi can teach classes on traditional basketmaking skills, and so that more language comparisons can be made with Nora. We were honored to have these tribal visitors and are eager for their return to help renew vanishing cultural practices.

Have a good week.

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