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1 The Stories Baskets Tell Carole McAllister and Carlon Andre
1
The Stor ies Baskets Tel l Carole McAllister and Carlon Andre
Preface ........................................................................................................ 2 Introduction ............................................................................................. 6
New Art Form ........................................................................................................................ 6 Tradition ................................................................................................................................. 7
Chapter 1 Place ........................................................................................ 9 Ties to Cultural Identity .................................................................................................... 9
Mono-Lake Area of Great Basin ................................................................................................ 9 Points on the Map ........................................................................................................................ 10
Spiritual Significance ....................................................................................................... 11 Spring Ceremony ......................................................................................................................... 11 Yosemite—Place and Legend ................................................................................................. 11
Chapter 2 Basketry.............................................................................. 14 Beginnings of Basketry ................................................................................................... 14
Pack Baskets .................................................................................................................................. 14 Food Baskets ................................................................................................................................. 15
Basket Weaving Techniques ......................................................................................... 15 Open Twined Baskets ................................................................................................................ 16 Closed Twined Basket ............................................................................................................... 16 Coiled Baskets ............................................................................................................................... 17
Gathering of Materials .................................................................................................... 17 Design Materials ................................................................................................................ 18
Chapter 3 Influence of Contact ........................................................ 20 Holocene Period ................................................................................................................ 20 Late Prehistoric Period ................................................................................................... 20 Historic Period ................................................................................................................... 21 Impact of Displacement: Inter-tribal Influences .................................................. 22 Bead Access and Cultural Influence ........................................................................... 24 Arrival of the Beaded Basket ........................................................................................ 25 Impact of Tourism ............................................................................................................ 26 Early Collections of Beaded Baskets ......................................................................... 28
Chapter 4 The George Bernheimer Collection ........................... 30 Beginnings: 1890-1900 .................................................................................................. 30 Early Period: 1900-1929 ............................................................................................... 31
Beaded Bottles .............................................................................................................................. 32 Beaded Basket Makers .............................................................................................................. 33 Representative Mono Lake Paiute Style—Unattributed ............................................. 37 Low Shoulders Baskets ............................................................................................................. 38 Trade Baskets/Paiute Beaded ................................................................................................ 38 Walker Lake Petroglyph Designs .......................................................................................... 38 Walker River .................................................................................................................................. 39 Washoe Basketry ......................................................................................................................... 39 Unattributed 1920s .................................................................................................................... 40 Spirit Baskets ................................................................................................................................ 41 Unattributed Pomo Baskets .................................................................................................... 41
Middle Phase: 1930-1950 ............................................................................................. 42 Cohn Certificate Baskets ........................................................................................................... 43 Representative Mono Lake Basketry................................................................................... 43 Master Basket Makers ............................................................................................................... 44 Walker River .................................................................................................................................. 47 Washoe Basketry ......................................................................................................................... 47 Pomo ................................................................................................................................................. 48
Modern Phase: 1950-1970 ............................................................................................ 48 Walker River Basketry .............................................................................................................. 49 Unattributed Walker River Basket Bead Work ............................................................... 52 Washoe ............................................................................................................................................ 52 Unattributed .................................................................................................................................. 53 Pomo ................................................................................................................................................. 54
Contemporary Phase: 1970-Present ......................................................................... 54 Beaded Basket Makers .............................................................................................................. 55
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 59
Chapter 5 Conversations ................................................................... 62 Julia Parker (1929- ) ........................................................................................................ 62 Clara Castillo ....................................................................................................................... 65 Bernadette Sanchez DeLorme (1951- ) .................................................................... 66 Norm DeLorme (1952- ) ................................................................................................ 70 Celia DeLorme (1981- ) .................................................................................................. 73 Rebecca Eagle (1964- ) ................................................................................................... 75
Conclusion .............................................................................................. 79 Bibliography .......................................................................................... 80
2
Preface One brief, chance encounter over ten years ago at an antique jewelry show in
Louisiana resulted in the commitment of two Louisiana colleagues to write the story of
one gentleman’s collection of over three hundred American Indian beaded baskets. Thus,
without realizing the complexity and enormity of the task we had volunteered to
undertake, we set about to tell the story of a beaded basket collection which resides in
Massachusetts, but whose origins lie in the Great Basin of western Nevada and the
eastern Sierras of California.
Since beaded baskets do not bear artist’s signature(s), to uncover the “identity” of
a basket, we had to enter a distant land and learn a new language. We knew immediately
that we did not have the necessary skills nor expertise to travel this terrain—we needed a
guide.
Initially, we turned to Craig Bates, author of Tradition and Innovation, the
definitive work on baskets from this region, and at that time, Curator of Ethnography at
the Yosemite Natural History Museum. To begin, he welcomed us into his home for a
weeklong stay and drove us into Yosemite Park daily to begin work in the archives. He
gave hours to us there, allowing us access to archival files, showing us the Yosemite
Collection (not open to the public), and teaching us the language we would need to know
to begin our journey. He became our mentor through the early stages of this project. He
connected us to artists of the past and the present by introducing us to relatives of classic
beaders, other collectors, and contemporary artists. In addition, he wrote letters of
introduction, so we ourselves could then contact Indian artists and set up interviews.
3
Without his gracious hospitality and generous gift of time and energy, we would have
been lost.
Craig brought us to Lee Vining, to the home of Edna Blaver’s home, Carrie
Bethel’s niece. She showed us her Carrie Bethel collection: seeing the extraordinary work
of one of finest beaded basket artists of all time, we learned quickly how to recognize
absolute mastery of an art form.
Through Craig we were introduced to Julia Parker, noted basket maker who
demonstrated her artistry at the Yosemite Village in the park. She spent a day with us,
teaching us about Yosemite Indian culture and life, guiding us to former home sites and
sharing many stories of a basket making tradition.
He introduced us to Lloyd Chichester who himself had a collection of beaded
baskets. Lloyd welcomed us to his home and showed us his collection. Since he knew
who had made the baskets in his collection, we continued to learn how to recognize an
artist’s work.
One of the most startling experiences on this initial trip was visiting the Mono
County Museum in Bridgeport, California. Here resided the spectacular Ella Cain
collection of beaded baskets. We assumed we could both viewing the collection and learn
the identity of the beaded basket makers and compare those baskets with our photos. To
our surprise, these magnificent beaded baskets had no attributions! At that time, they
were unidentified. Many of these baskets represented the peak of the art form.
(Unfortunately, the collection no longer exists as such, having been auctioned off
individually.)
4
After the initial trip, we began to realize the enormity of the project. Many more
trips would have to follow. And why commit to such a project for which we were at such
a disadvantage to complete? Both of us shared a strong interest in and profound respect
for Indian culture. It was not simply to “identify” the baskets in a collection, but to honor
those anonymous artists whose name never appeared on their work. It was to hear the
stories that baskets tell in context of the ongoing life and culture of Indian people as well
as to honor both an art form and those artists who have participated in it.
Throughout the years we learned to follow the web of connectedness, up and
down the Eastern side of the Sierras in California and from Reno to Pyramid Lake and
the Walker River Reservation. One person’s story led us to another and so on. We have
met many Indian people who have given generously of their time to support this project.
Some offered to peruse the six photo albums of beaded baskets, trying to help with
attributions. At the Washoe Senior Center in Gardnerville, California, basket makers
Florine Conway and Joann Martinez spent several hours looking through the albums.
In Bridgeport, California, Raymond Andrews, himself a noted artist, traveled
several hours with his aunt and mother to view the albums. They are close relatives of
renown beaded basket maker Minnie Mike. Norm DeLorme and I traveled to the Walker
River Reservation to lunch with Irma Foster, Edna Foster’s daughter-in-law, who showed
us her collection and talked openly about life on the reservation.
We then called upon “retired” beaded basket maker Clara Castillo who opened
her doors warmly to two unannounced visitors. She enjoyed looking at the baskets, and
then to her delight, recognizing many of her own baskets as well as those of her mother in
the photos.
5
In Wadsworth, NV, contemporary beaded basket maker Becky Eagle welcomed
us several times to her home, helping us with attributions, giving us leads to follow,
showing us her own work, and answering many questions. In Reno, Bernie DeLorme, a
beaded basket maker whose work sits in the Smithsonian, kindly accepted visits on
several occasions where she, too, helped us with attributions, engaged us the process of
stripping the willow and weaving the basket, and allowed us to interview her for her
story.
Halfway into this project we met Norm DeLorme, himself a highly recognized
beaded basket maker. He began by telling the story of his family, what he learned from
his Great Aunt Celia Arnot (beaded basket maker), and how the tradition has continued
with his daughter Celia. He has contributed a great deal of time, becoming a key
consultant. Not only did he set up interviews (see above), but accompanied me on the
journeys, telling stories as we drove throughout Paiute country. He was the storyteller
who wove together the history of the land and the history of its people. He provided the
fabric that gave life and balance to the story of beaded baskets.
6
Introduction New Art Form
The beaded basket, a relatively new American Indian art form, demonstrates the
growth and mastery of a technique that began late in the nineteenth century among the
Mono Lake Paiutes. It was found mainly among the tribes of the Great Basin: the
Northern Paiute (Paviotso), Western Shoshone, and Washoe Indians (and to a much
lesser extent among a few other California tribes, such as the Pomo, the Miwoks and the
Yokuts). The beaded baskets proliferated from the 1920s to the 1950s, mainly in Nevada
and Eastern California. These characteristically round baskets are first woven from
endemic plants, mainly willow, and then covered with a net of colorful bead work.
The origins of the distinct baskets of the Yosemite/Mono Lake area, baskets that
eventually evolve into the beaded basket, tell a story that honors the traditional while
encouraging and accepting the new. More than a story influenced by society and
economics, it is primarily a history of the merging and blending of people, people of
different backgrounds, people of different places. These baskets are a by-product, which
blends traditional basketry with a new technique of beading. They are a by-product of the
economic needs of the weavers, the indigenous people of the Yosemite/Mono Lake area
and the demands and tastes of the buyers—the Euro-American tourists. They are a by-
product of the blending of the people as well as a blending of the basket traditions of the
people of the Great Basin. As an innovative art genre demonstrating artistic proficiency
and individual style, the beaded basket filled an economic niche, thus both creating and
marketing a new visual art form. Not only do these baskets reflect the energy and spirit of
the maker, they also represent the union of tradition, place, and artist.
7
Tradition Characteristically, Indian weavers practice traditions representative of their tribal
origin or tribal affiliation—traditions infused with a spirituality that honors the land and
all it provides. These traditions are passed down through the family to the younger
generations, representing a generational flow of both tribal cultural knowledge and family
traditions, linking one generation to another. Although these links have sometimes been
broken, the beaded baskets weavers seem to represent the successful transfer of cultural
knowledge and tribal practices. Generally, the traditional Indian family embraced and
supported many weavers and bead workers. Within the Indian family, the beaded basket
represents a means of economic survival as well as an exercise of gift giving and tribal
heritage.
Whenever the traditional weavers construct a beaded basket, they display certain
individual characteristics while maintaining customary technical traits. Individual
characteristics emphasize artistry, including basketry skills, innovative design, and
colorful bead work patterns. Traditional weaving traits recognize ancient weaving
techniques, native plant knowledge, and conventional forms and functions of the basket
itself. Sometimes the beaded basket might represent the basketry of one weaver and the
bead work of another.
Yet the creation of a beaded basket reflects more than a successful transfer of
cultural knowledge; it reflects the weaver’s individual “enlightenment” and practice of
tribal ritual. According to tribal belief, the maker of the beaded basket has been “gifted”
with lessons taught by endless generations, repeating cycles of recognition. The weaver
never creates alone: the natural world and the spiritual world interact with the weaver to
provide knowledge of the gifts bestowed. In honoring these gifts, the weaver must
8
acknowledge and accept the responsibilities associated with these gifts, often setting a
lifetime course to follow. Thus, integrated in the creative design of each beaded basket is
a plan both earthly and spiritual. We see the weaver/bead worker both innovating and
maintaining individual characteristics while at the same time incorporating cultural traits
and heritage into the new beaded basket art form.
9
Chapter 1 Place Ties to Cultural Identity
Most non-American Indian people identify themselves as native to the area of
their birth, so we often hear, for example, “I’m a native New Yorker.” Considering our
mobile society, this “nativeness” simply reflects where our parent(s) happened to be
living at the time of our birth. Further, our native “place” represents an area arbitrarily
designated by government, a state, a county, city, etc., a place not necessarily tied to our
cultural heritage or ancestors. On the other hand, American Indians, as native people, are
tied to place through their ancestors; they live on ancestral land. Their identity and link to
place rests in their cultural heritage. Thus, the story of beaded baskets begins with the
land, and with its cultural ties to ancestors and tradition.
Mono-Lake Area of Great Basin The story of beaded baskets begins in the Mono-Lake area of the Great Basin on
the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas. Arriving at Mono Lake through desert-like
terrain, one is overwhelmed by an immediate sense of peace and calm arising from the
blue stillness. Mono Lake, a vast inland oasis, is hedged in on three sides by the empty
remains of volcanoes—the Bodie Hills, the Anchorite Hills, Cowtrack mountains, and the
now more active Mono Craters—and on the west by the majestic granite walls of the
Sierras. The only inhabitants visible on the lake are the tufa, calcium carbonate statues,
emerging throughout the lake like ancient stone sentries.
<fig.1>
10
From Mono Lake, Paiute Indian people frequently traveled (and still do) across
the Sierras to Yosemite, for ceremonies, food gathering, and trade. They journeyed
through lands of stark contrasts, from the arid, semi-barren landscape on the Eastern side
of the Sierras that offered little sustenance to its inhabitants to a lush, bountiful valley, an
area of approximately seven hundred and sixty thousand acres that comprise present-day
Yosemite National Park.
<fig. 2>
Points on the Map From the time of Euro-American contact until the present, Mono Lake Paiutes
(located on the Eastern side of Mono Lake) were part of a larger group of people, united
linguistically, known as the Northern Paiute.i At the time of Euro-American contact,
Northern Paiute territory covered approximately seventy-eight thousand square miles.
This pie-shaped land ran two hundred and seventy-five miles across the Blue Mountains
in Oregon, six hundred miles south down the Eastern side of the Sierras to Owen Lake,
California, and back up the western side of the Austin and Battle Mountain, Nevada. It
included Boise, Idaho, but not Reno, Carson City, nor Lake Tahoe, which were
considered Washoe territory. There was not one leader, one tribe, but rather bands of
people who were joined linguistically and led by individual chiefs.ii
Now, Northern Paiute tribes live on reservations in California, Oregon, and
Nevada, with the majority residing in Nevada.iii In the Reno-Sparks Colony, the Hiltons
rather than the Sierras provide the backdrop for the Paiute. Here we find the
contemporary beaded basket makers such as Norm DeLorme, Bernie DeLorme and Celia
DeLorme. The traditions continue; the land remains sacred; it matters not if it happens to
be in the midst of downtown Reno. Pyramid Lake Reservation lies about thirty-five miles
11
northeast of Reno and contains the alkaline Pyramid Lake, a blue vision in a barren land.
Becky Eagle lives nearby in Wadsworth. The other Paiute reservation is the Walker River
reservation at Schurz, home of Clara Castillo.
<fig. 3>
Driving from Reno to Schurz or to Pyramid Lake is not simply a trip through a
bleak, empty desert, bordered by barren mountain tops. Looking closer one notices the
sacred sage and sweet grass edging the highway. If a basket maker, one would know
where to find the willow, the red bud, or the bracken fern. To the Paiute and others
attuned, the land reverberates with the life and spirit to nurture a people and their culture.
Spiritual Significance Spring Ceremony
Every year, during the spring “seed ceremony,” Paiutes give baskets containing
seeds back to the earth. They call it “feeding the land”—mother earth. These seeds, e.g.,
dried berries, seeds, pine nuts, represent what is left over from what mother earth
provided the year before. The baskets are placed in a pit and returned to the earth as a
gift. As part of the ceremony, the people, often a network of weavers, ask Mother Earth
for her continued blessing.
Yosemite—Place and Legend Again, to the indigenous people, place was not simply where two points meet;
instead, place was tangible and intangible. Place was a dynamic world, a world which
interacted with the inhabitants. Place was composed of features whose names revealed
events of historical and spiritual significance. Place was Yosemite—Ahwhanee, or
awahni, “place like a gaping mouth,” the deep, grassy valley inhabited by Chief Teneya
and the two hundred or so tribal members in 1851.iv
12
To the early inhabitants on each side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, place was
multi-sensory; they saw, savored, and felt place. The Ahwahaneechee not only saw the
six hundred and twenty feet of cascading water named Bridal Veil Fall, but they also
experienced Po-Ho-No through legend. To the people of Yosemite, the cascading fall was
the spirit of the puffing wind, “Po-Ho-No,” lifting the water. The fall was also sometimes
referred to as "Evil Wind." Supposedly, "the source of this stream was haunted by
troubled spirits."v
<fig. 4>
Here in Yosemite we also find the story of how these Indian people were first
gifted with basketry. A young woman, Tis-sa’-ack, and her husband arrived from distant
lands. She, supporting a conical burden basket, and he, shouldering skin blankets, were
tired and thirsty after crossing the mountains. Tis-sa’-ack arrived at Lake ah-wei-yah
(Mirror Lake) first. Being very thirsty, she drank all the water. When her husband arrived
to a dry lake, he angrily struck his wife with his staff. She, in turn, threw her burden
basket at him. It remains to this day where she threw it, for “Half Dome is her husband.
Beside the latter is a smaller dome which is still called Basket Dome.”vi She also brought
baskets and beads to the people as a token of friendship.vii
Thus, according to tribal story, the tradition of basketry is inextricably tied to the
creation of place. Its beginnings lie in the primeval past as a gift, which continues to be
honored today.
i. C.S. Fowler and S. Liljeblad, “Northern Paiutes,” in Handbook of the North American Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II, ed. Warren L. d’Azevedo (Washington: Smithsonian Instituion, 1986), 435-465. Those south of Mono Lake, though close linguistically, were grouped as Owens Valley Paiute.
13
ii. M.C. Knack and O.C. Stewart, As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 15. iii. For a complete listing of Northern Paiute reservations, see http://www.fourdir.com/ northern%20paiute.htm. iv. Knack and Stewart, As Long as the River Shall Run, 19. v. Galen Clark, Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity: Their History, Customs and Traditions (Yosemite Valley, CA: Galen Clark, 1904), 96. vi. Ibid., 87-90. vii. Ibid., 83.
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Chapter 2 Basketry Beginnings of Basketry
In the western region of the Great Basin area, basketry can be traced back to as
early as 9300 BC. Prior to the arrival of the Euro-American, baskets were primarily
utilitarian and defined Native life from birth to death. They served as cradleboards; work
baskets, for gathering, for carrying, storage, cooking, and eating; and gift baskets.
Post-Columbian tribes of the Great Basin, such as the Western Shoshone,
Northern Paiute, Washoe, Miwok, and Maidu, all had basketry. Very regional, they
utilized the natural resources of their environment. Within each tribe, baskets were used
for specific ceremonies as well as serving as gift baskets. During the contact period with
settlers, tribes began making baskets specifically for sale.
<fig. 5>
Largely, the tribes of the Great Basin considered most baskets utilitarian in
purpose, either pack baskets or food baskets. These utilitarian baskets also included toy
and game baskets. Miniaturized versions of particular baskets were created to teach a
child the purpose/function of that basket, e.g., a doll’s basket. Game baskets for gambling
and dice games were woven to correspond to that particular game.
Pack Baskets Pack baskets can be traced to the Paiute creation stories; when the people arrived,
they wore pack baskets on their backs. Each fall, prior to the pine nut harvest, Paiutes
hold a Pine Nut Dance or pine nut blessing ceremony. Old people tell of the “clown
dance” or “pack dance” or “coyote dance.” Here men disguised themselves wearing
15
blankets and scarves, as they dance and clown with pack baskets. A coyote character
always appears in the clown dance whose role is to make mischief, such as trip the
dancers, pee on people, and fake intercourse. The dance represents the migration patterns
of the people, always moving from camp to camp, carrying their burden baskets, water
bottles, etc.
Food Baskets The other main category for utilitarian baskets is the food basket, which can also
be referred to as a “stackable basket.” Since tribes moved from one camp to another, their
baskets needed to accommodate their mobility. So food baskets were created to fit
economically into the pack basket, one inside another, resulting in the “stackable basket.”
Food baskets have their own special dance. The “Basket Dance” is a basket
blessing ceremony, which, according to Norm DeLorme, originated at Pyramid Lake.i
Here the dancers carry willow food baskets, and while they dance, they pray that the year
that follows will bring the people an adequate supply of food. The basket is blessed and
treated as a sacred vessel, a gift to the people.
Basket Weaving Techniques Most baskets in the Great Basin region were made by two methods, twining or
coiling. Twining was an early basket form (9300 BC) found extensively; coiled baskets
appeared in the Western region after 4500 BC. In twining, wefts or sewing strands were
wound horizontally around stationary rods forming the warp (stand-up sticks or rods).
Warp rods were most frequently made of willow, which was readily available. Twined
baskets can be either tightly woven, i.e., closed twining or open twining where the weft
material is spaced a distance apart. The choice depended upon the basket’s function.
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Open Twined Baskets Open twined baskets include the burden basket, a large cone-shaped, cylindrical
basket used for many purposes. Burden baskets were used as pack baskets for moving
belongings from place to place or as a vehicle for carrying harvested pine nuts, acorns, or
berries, etc. Another common open twined basket was the seed beater. This flat, fan-
shaped basket was used to beat the seeds from plants, trees, brush and bushes into the
burden basket.
Another basket found in the pack basket category would be the winnowing tray.
Constructed similarly to the seed beater, this tray was used to separate the edible material
from the other parts of the plant, e.g., leaves, hulls, etc. The user would shake the
winnowing tray, tossing the material in the air. The winnowing tray would catch the
heavier, edible material, while the lighter, non-edible material would be blown away by
the wind. Baby baskets or receiving baskets were used for newborns and were also of an
open twine weave.
Closed Twined Basket Closed twined baskets were used for harvesting seeds and smaller berries. This
basket looks like a winnowing tray, but it is sometimes so closely twined that the sticks
are not visible. This type of triangular basket varied in purpose, from seed collecting to
flour sifting and actual food preparation such as mush boilers. Water baskets or jugs were
lightweight and were waterproofed with a coating of melted pine pitch/red earth mixture.
Whereas seed baskets were cropped off at the basket’s shoulder to create a wide mouth,
the water basket was pulled in at the neck to create a small mouth. The stopper for the
water bottle was made from cordage material, such as sage brush.
17
Coiled Baskets Coiled baskets are what the Paiute called the “round baskets.” Most of the baskets
used for beading employed coiling. The coiling process begins by forming a tight circle
or oval around the willow foundation rod, which has been shaved to an even diameter
size. Next, the foundation rod is spiraled around and sewn row after row with willow
stems (that have been soaked to a flexible, pliant state) to form the container. Coiling
refers to the actual sewing, the wrapping around the rod. These stitches are sometimes so
tightly woven that the basket is watertight. Paiute coiled basket either had one- or three-
stick rods made of willow.ii
<fig. 6>
Gathering of Materials The process of making a basket remains a complex task, requiring skill, patience,
and love. The first step in the process involves gathering and storing the materials.
Among the Paiutes, willow was, and still is, the material of choice for making baskets.
Most weavers collect their own materials, investing much time and labor prior to the
weaving itself. One needs to know when and where to pick, for as Bernie DeLorme says,
“Not just any plant will do.” Another highly recognized beaded basket maker, Rebecca
Eagle echoes, “You must have an eye for looking at willow.”iii Julia Parker says she
begins “by becoming friends with the plants—knowing these plants are going to talk to
you and they do. The plants talk to you; they let you know when they’re ready.”iv Parker
said when she began to make baskets, she listened to her elders: “Gather willow when the
leaves turn yellow. Gather the shoots before budding in the winter or spring—March is
best. If willow is gathered in March, the skin strips more easily.”v
<fig. 7>
18
The next step is stripping the skin from the shoots. Parker smiles and says, “Strip
the willow until it sings to you.”vi Most importantly, however, she reveals the tradition,
the spirituality of Native life as she recalls the advice of her elders: “Borrow, don’t steal
the way of fellow basket maker friends; don’t forget the old way, Julia. Take from the
earth and say, ‘Please.” Give back to the earth and say ‘Thank you.’”vii As Parker’s
comments illustrate, tradition and place dictate the gathering and storing of other
materials used in the process. Once materials were gathered, prepared, and stored, the
weaver approached the second step, the actual weaving of the basket.
<fig. 8>
Design Materials Designs in black were created by using the root of the bracken fern or devil’s
claw whereas red designs were produced by using split shoots of redbud. Another plant
used in Paiute baskets, according to Nellie Shaw Harner, is the chokeberry. She mentions
that among the Pyramid Lake Paiute, this plant was used for reinforcing utility baskets.viii
In the stitching, the weft or sewing material, usually willow, is sewn with an awl (bone,
later metal) in an interlocking or non-interlocking fashion. According to C.D. Bates and
M.J. Lee, Paiutes incorporated both styles, the interlocking, learned from contact with the
Miwok, and the non-interlocking like the Washoe. As Bates and Lee suggest, it seems the
type of stitching used was often a function of their tribal neighbors’ practice.ix
<fig. 9>
Finely woven and sometimes adorned with feathers or other objects of nature,
baskets served in ceremonies, including mourning ceremonies. Baskets, woven of willow,
redbud, bracken fern—gifts from the earth—sometimes follow traditional shapes and
display traditional designs passed from generation to generation, or sometimes create
19
designs drawn from nature or from dreams. Many of these encoded symbols tell stories—
stories infused with tradition, stories whose meanings reflect the flow of generations.x
i. Mary Lee Fulkerson, Weavers of Tradition and Beauty: Basketmakers of the Great Basin (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1995), 106. ii. William C. Orchard, Beads and Beadwork of the American Indians, 2nd ed. (New York: Museum of the American India Heye Foundation, 1975), 166. Importantly, a coiled, one-stick, foundation is the primary form for the beaded baskets in the Bernheimer collection. iii. Bernie DeLorme and Becky Eagle (beaded basket makers), personal interview by Carlon Andre, August 1997. iv. Julia Parker (beaded basket maker), personal interview by Carlon Andre and Carole McAllister, August 1997. v. Ibid. vi. Ibid. vii. Ibid. The story of Julia Parker first appeared as “And the Tradition Continues: Julia Parker and the Baskets of Yosemite,” by Carlon Andre and Carole McAllister, in Proteus 16 (1), Spring 1999, 32-34. viii. Nellie Shaw Harner, The History of the Pyramid Lake Indians 1843-1959 and Early Tribal History 1825-1834 (Sparks, NV: Dave’s Printing and Publishing, 1974), 11. ix. C.D. Bates and M.J. Lee, Tradition and Innovation: A Basket History of the Indians of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area (Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association, 1990), 53. x. J.M. Adovasio, “Prehistoric History,” in Handbook of the North American Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II, ed. Warren L. d’Azevedo (Washington: Smithsonian Instituion, 1986): 194-205; L.E. Dawson and C.S. Fowler, “Ethnographic Basketry,” in Handbook of the North American Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II, 705-737; Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 39-71. These texts provide a more complete description of the beginnings of basketry.
20
Chapter 3 Influence of Contact Holocene Period
To explore the history of beaded baskets, we need to look a bit further back in
time than late nineteenth century and examine the impact of inter-tribal contact. The
earliest trade routes among the tribes of the western Basin region date from the Holocene
period with the major source of trade being shell and obsidian.i The exchange and flow of
information and goods among tribal neighbors, often living in adjacent valleys, was quite
common and casual due to the mobility and contact of these peoples.ii
Late Prehistoric Period During the late Prehistoric period, Ericson and Baugh trace the flow of goods in a
complex system of trade routes flowing from the Southeast to the Plains and then from
the Plains back to the Southwest, which implies a pass through the Great Basin.iii
Further, people in the Plains groups were actively engaged in trade with neighbors of the
Columbian Plateau as well as the Great Basin.iv Looking at the Great Basin people
specifically, Richard Hughes indicates that marine shell and to a lesser extent obsidian
were frequently exchanged pre-contact during the early Prehistoric period.v In fact,
contrary to what one might think, research has shown that the largest volume of Pacific
coast shell bead exchanged between California and the Great Basin people occurred early
in the Pre-historic period rather than the time closer to European contact.vi
<fig.10>
However, even though we do know that these exchange routes between the
California coast and the Great Basin existed, J.E. Ericson and Thomas Jackson caution us
21
to be wary in what we can assume. We can assume the distance these goods (obsidian
and shell beads) traveled, but not much more. According to Ericson and Jackson, the
overall volume of exchange was small. Further, we cannot assume the value or meaning
of these items of exchange, especially shell beads, was the same among cultures,
especially since trade was not occurring unidirectionally.vii
The Mono Paiutes traveled across the Sierras frequently, spending time in the
Yosemite Valley to gather their highly valued acorns of the California black oak. While
in earlier times these trips might have resulted in war with the Yosemite Mi-Wa and other
bands, the Paiutes normally had peaceful relationships with their neighbors.viii Sometimes
localized fights might have occurred over woman stealing or to seek revenge, but these
acts were individual in nature, not tribal.ix Overall, we find that the Mono Paiutes traded
frequently with California tribes, e.g., the Eastern Miwoks.x
Historic Period Contact with Europeans brought American Indians the glass bead. Learning from
other explorers, Columbus brought to America a sizable volume of glass beads for
trading purposes. Since the making of beads from natural materials such as shell, bone,
stone, and minerals such as turquoise was extremely labor-intensive, ready-made glass
beads quickly became a lucrative trade item between the Euro-Americans and the
American Indians.xi European glass beads, mainly from Czechoslovakia and Venice,
were valued and traded for according to size and color. The most prevalent were the seed
beads: flattened, globular beads approximately one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch in
diameter. These beads were common among the western Indian tribes by the mid 1800s.
22
Appearing earlier than seed beads were the larger “Pony” beads (more than one-eighth
inch diameter), named so for the traders who carried these beads in packs on their ponies.
In addition to size, color also made a difference. Most highly prized were blue
beads. In fact, an excerpt from Lewis and Clark’s journal notes that the Indians he traded
with turned down red beads, a watch, and an American dollar; they wanted blue beads.
The Crow Indians were using blue seed beads, which they obtained through trade either
with the Spanish directly or Shoshoni who traded with the southwest Indians. These blue
beads were so highly valued that the Crow were willing to trade a horse for a mere one
hundred of them.xii
Some of these other tribes with which the Mono Paiutes traded, like the Miwok
and the Pomo, also incorporated beads into their baskets. The Pomo were beading early
in the 1800s, with different types of beads, some obtained from Russian and Pacific
traders traveling through Asia; some of their beads were Italian, some Asian, and some
even from North Africa. A little further west, Pacific coastal tribes also used abalone,
clamshells, dentallium, and feathers on their baskets.
Impact of Displacement: Inter-tribal Influences During the historic period, the Paiutes and other peoples of northeastern and
western Nevada received beads from central California.xiii During the conflicts between
the Paiutes and the United States government, which ensued during the mid to late 1800s,
the Owens Valley Paiutes, who lived in the area south of Bishop, California, were
displaced to Fort Tejon in Southern California.xiv
While at Fort Tejon, the Owens Valley Paiutes mingled with tribes from the
Southwest, including the Mohave and the Supai of Arizona. The more northern Paiutes
23
living north of Bishop and into Nevada (Reno, Walker River, Pyramid Lake) were
displaced to the Columbia River Basin near the lands of the Plateau tribes, such as the
Umatilla and the Yakima. Upon their return, these groups, the Owens Valley Paiutes and
the northern Paiutes, came together in the early 1900s at Mono Lake. It is at this juncture
that we can clearly see the cultural influences coming from their displacement.xv
The Paiutes of Owens Valley were influenced through intermarriage, trade, and
displacement by the Southwestern tribes of Arizona and Southern California as well as
the Spanish. As prisoners of war at Fort Tejon, they met the Yokuts, the Mohave, and the
Supai. Through the cultural exchange that resulted, the Paiutes not only adopted cry
dances and mourning ceremonies, but bead work as well. Among Southwest tribes, bead
work was done by hand; the loom was rarely used. From the Mohave, Paiutes admired
the netting bead work technique and beaded collar itself; they readily adopted both into
the Paiute culture.
<fig.11>
From the 1870s to the 1880s, the more northern Paiutes, as victims of
government-forced removal, were displaced to Plateau Indian reservations along the
Columbia River Basin.xvi During this period, the Paiutes were indeed influenced by this
Northwest Plateau culture in both basketry and bead work.
In basketry, the Northern Paiutes modified their baby basket. The traditional
willow basket added a covering of buckskin, as well as buckskin fringe. Frontal lacing
over its rounded framework and two flowers or stars appliqué became standard
decoration on Paiute baby baskets.
The Paiutes also encountered a thriving bead culture among the Umatilla, Cayuse,
Yakima, and Nez Perce, all of whom had direct access to imported Czech beads from a
24
New York importer. In the five years from 1878 to 1883, the Paiutes became immersed in
the Northwest Plateau bead culture. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce is noted for his regalia
covered with Czechoslovakian seed beads.xvii The bead culture paralleled the
warrior/horse culture, which the Paiutes had been introduced to by the 1860s. We
especially see the impact of the Umatilla culture on Paiute bead work. In Oregon, vests
and war bonnets were beaded, and the Paiutes imitated the chief’s buckskin beaded
regalia.
During the 1850s and 1860s, a bead and horse culture had already been
established, as shown by the beaded horse riggings. Thus, we see the impact of the Plains
Indians culture on the Plateau culture. Even though tribes could have been warring with
one another, their contact resulted in cultural connection. It was through this cultural
connection that the Plateau Indians introduced a different beading technique: their bead
work was not done by hand, as in the Southwest, but mostly by using a loom. Not only
did the Paiutes learn a new beading technique, but they also brought back some of the
Umatilla designs. On some Paiute loom work, we find the 8-point star, war arrows, and
floral patterns, reminiscent of the Umatilla.
Bead Access and Cultural Influence Once the reservation system was established among the Paiute, they became
farmers and ranchers, adopting a sedentary lifestyle. Nevertheless, from the 1880s to the
1930s, the consistency of a basket culture is still evident. Their cultural traditions
remained intact, just practiced in a smaller area. No longer migratory, their dependence
upon hunting and gathering was limited, reflecting a changing lifestyle. Also, their day-
to-day contact with Euro-Americans increased.
25
Still, the Paiutes’ access to beads was not as direct as the Plains or Plateau tribes,
but more filtered down through the trade path. Whereas the Plains and Northwest Plateau
tribes were utilizing manufactured Czech glass beads obtained directly through a New
York importer, Paiutes were dependent on what Norm DeLorme calls “Victorian beads,”
Austrian or Venetian faceted beads. These beads might have come from a Victorian
lady’s dress or purse. While being salvage beads, these beads were a main part of Paiute
artistry. One can simply look at photographs of Sarah Winnemucca in her Paiute dress
covered with beautiful glass seed beads or the beaded belts, headbands, and other items to
see how much bead work had become Paiute tradition.
By the turn of the twentieth century, bead work was well established among the
Northern Paiute. With the development of mining towns into cities came the influx of an
affluent material culture of the Victorian era. Here many cultures both collided and
connected. Paiute men worked side by side with Chinese laborers in the lumber mills and
mining towns, such as Bodie, California, to support the growth and the affluence.
Reflective of this blending of cultures is a pair of Chinese beaded slippers, sitting in the
museum of the now-deserted town of Bodie. Further, many Paiute women and men
worked in the affluent “American” households in Virginia City, and economic
relationships developed. In fact, this “co-existence” offered the Indians economic
opportunities. Euro-American merchant traders supplied their Paiute workers with beads.
And the development of a new curio market for American Indian goods began.
<fig.12>
Arrival of the Beaded Basket One story attributes the beginnings of the beaded basket to the cultural
“collisions” between Paiute and affluent Americans. Beaded baskets, according to Ella
26
Cain (an early collector of this art form), grew out of the efforts of E. W. Billeb,
Superintendent of Mono Mills, to broaden a market for the wives of his Indian
employees. He had long admired the baskets and bead work that the wives of his Indian
laborers produced. Aware of their talent as both expert bead workers and basket makers,
in 1905 he ordered Czechoslovakian seed beads and distributed them among the Indian
women.xviii
According to the story, Billeb suggested the women try covering the exterior of
their baskets with the beads. After repeated attempts, they devised a netting technique
that was successful. Using this technique, bead workers applied two at a time around the
upper rim, and then added additional beads, usually one at a time, until the basket was
covered. In the process beads were added or dropped to form a pattern. A successful
basket resulted when the beading ended with a single bead at the bottom of the basket.
Thus, the beaded basket was created, or so the story goes.xix
In any event, by the 1900s Great Basin Indians are able to access New York
imported beads directly, and production of their bead work increases dramatically. Bead
work now covers the regalia of dancers, horses and…baskets. Also at this time, colors of
bead change and new colors appear, so beads become distinctive by color; old styles and
colors become obsolete, less available in prominent bead work. And with the innovation
of the “fancy basket,” the beaded basket arrives on the scene.
Impact of Tourism The native inhabitants of the Great Basin region began to change during the
second half of the nineteenth century due to western expansion and the advent of tourism.
At this time larger numbers of tourists were visiting Yosemite. Among other things, these
27
visitors sought the finely woven baskets that had become so fashionable. According to
Bates and Lee, “The first recorded sale of a basket to a non-Indian in Yosemite occurred
in 1869 when Jeanne Carr purchased a basket from an Indian woman.”xx
<fig.13>
During the 1890s, the lifestyle of Indian women in the Yosemite area had begun
to change. According to Galen Clark, even though there was a market for their basketry,
these women recognized that they could earn far more money doing washing and sewing
either for a hotel or in a private home: “any labor of this kind pays them better than
making baskets for sale.”xxi Their ever-increasing interaction with the local communities
showed them different cooking implements. Consequently, pots and pans began replacing
the traditional basket.
By 1910, however, tourist demand for anything “Indian”—baskets, bead work,
etc.—had so increased that Indian women in the Yosemite Valley began weaving strictly
for the tourist business. According to Bates and Lee, based upon “…a special Indian
census of 1910, a number of California Indian women listed their occupation as
‘basketmaker.’”xxii By this time, stores in and around the Yosemite area began catering to
a high demand for this artistry by selling Paiute beaded baskets. During the 1920s, the
Yosemite Park Indian Field days, held in the summer, attracted avid basket collectors and
spurred competition among the weavers by offering cash prizes and a ready market.
<fig.14>
To adapt to the growing demand, the Indians began to make changes to their
baskets. Not only were the baskets more finely woven, but they also differed in shape and
style as well. Coiled baskets with lids appeared, as well as platters, goblets, pitchers, etc.
Designs appearing on the tourist baskets also differed. These designs replicated the
28
designs Paiute and Yosemite Indians were using on their loom bead work headbands or
netted collars. They also covered more of the basket’s surface than baskets made for their
own use.xxiii
Early Collections of Beaded Baskets The earliest collected beaded basket, tagged 1911, was found in the Ella Cain
Collection, which had been housed until recently in the Mono County Museum in
Bridgeport, California. Ella Cain was a well-known basket collector who bought directly
from the Paiutes and other tribes early in the 1900s. Thus her collection, which was
recently auctioned off individually, included some of the earliest known, identifiable
Paiute beaded baskets. xxiv
Other early collectors of Indian beaded baskets included Abe and Amy Cohn,
owners of an emporium in Carson City, Nevada. Unfortunately, most of the names of the
first-generation of beaded basket makers remain unknown, as the early collectors only
recorded a few names. The Yosemite Park Natural History Museum retains a large
documented collection of beaded baskets thanks to the efforts of former curator Craig
Bates. Here one can find the work of some of the premier beaded basket makers of the
first half of the twentieth century as well as the work of premier contemporary beaded
basket makers.
i. J.A. Bennyhoff and R.E. Hughes, “Early Trade,” in Handbook of the North American Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II, ed. Warren L. d’Azevedo (Washington: Smithsonian Instituion, 1986), 238-255. See Bennyhoff’s and Hughes map of trade routes, p. 239. ii. Ibid., 238. Specifically, trade in Pacific coast shells can be traced to as early as 5000BC. 3. T.G. Baugh and J. E. Ericson, “Systematics of the Study of Prehistoric Regional Exchange in North America,” in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, ed. Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson (New York: Plenum Press, 1994), 4. 4. Ibid., 8.
29
5. Richard E. Hughes, “Mosaic Patterning in Prehistoric California—Great Basin Exchange,” in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, ed. Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson (New York: Plenum Press, 1994), 376. 6. Ibid. 7. J.E. Ericson and Thomas Jackson, “Prehistoric Exchange Systems in California,” in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, ed. Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson (New York: Plenum Press, 1994), 386-388. 8. C.H. Merriam, Studies in California Indians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955), 76. 9. J.H. Steward and J.H. Wheeler-Voegelin, “The Northern Paiute Indians,” in Paiute Indians, Vol. III (New York: Garland Publishing, 1974), 40. 10. Fowler and Liljeblad, “Northern Paiutes,” 438 (see chap. 1, n.1). xi. Glass beads from China had already appeared due to sea otter trade with California among some Western tribes. xii. Joan Mowat Erikson, The Universal Bead (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969), 24, 46-48. 13. Bennyhoff and Hughes, “Early Trade,” in Handbook of the North American Indians, 255. 14. For further discussion of Fort Tejon, see Floyd Farrar and Don Worth, “Fort Tejon, California,” CivilWarAlbum.com, http://www.civilwaralbum.com/misc/tejon.htm. xv. Northern Paiute is the name for the linguistic group including the Paiutes north of Owens Valley, e.g., Walker River, Pyramid Lake, Mono Lake, etc. xvi. S.W. Hopkins, Life Among the Paiutes (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1994), 247. xvii. The bead culture flourished among the Plains tribes perhaps even earlier than among the Plateau tribes. 18. Ella M. Cain, The Story of Early Mono County: Its Settlers, Gold Rushes, Indians, Ghost Towns (San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1961), 115. xix. Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 81 (see chap. 2, n.9). For original story see Cain, The Story of Early Mono County. 20. Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 73 (see chap. 2, n.9). 21. Galen Clark, Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity, 71 (see chap. 1, n.5). 22. Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 75 (see chap. 2, n.9). 23. Ibid., 76. 24. For an informal history of this area, see Ella M. Cain, The Story of Early Mono County.
30
Chapter 4 The George Bernheimer Collection
George Bernheimer has been interested in Indian art since finding arrowheads as a
child in Massachusetts. His affinity for American Indian artifacts changed over time,
from basketry to the beaded basket. For the past thirty or so years, he has focused
primarily on collecting beaded baskets.
The Bernheimer collection of beaded baskets charts the history of an art form,
native to a particular place and time. Aside from the cultural stories it imparts and the
tradition it represents, its importance lies in the quality of art represented. Outstanding
artists of the past are exhibited in works attributed to Edna Foster, Mary Wilson, Maggie
Howard, Lucy Tom and premier beaded basket artists Celia Arnot, Lucy Telles, Carrie
Bethel and her sister Minnie Mike. In addition, the collection also contains examples of
highly respected contemporary artists, such as Norm DeLorme, Bernie DeLorme, Celia
DeLorme, Fay DeLorme, Becky Eagle, and Sandy Eagle.
Furthermore, this diverse collection incorporates the rare Mono Lake, Pyramid
Lake, and early twentieth century baskets with other exemplary baskets that illustrate the
many diverse techniques of both basket weaving and beading. Bernheimer’s collection
reflects the complete story, the profound evolution of a unique art form that is exclusively
American Indian. Through examining this collection of beaded baskets, we can add to the
story of the Great Basin people.
Beginnings: 1890-1900 The beaded baskets from this “beginnings” period exhibit glass seed beads,
Victorian faceted and iridescent beads, Italian white hearts, cotton or line thread and the
31
traditional twined core baskets. Because of the affluent nature of the Eastern and
California Victorian-Americans, European beads and steel needles were established
continental exports. During this period the beaded basket, which resembled a shimmering
jeweled object, reached a “curio” status in the décor of Anglo-American homes.
The early technique of applying bead to basket, usually a single-rod, modeled the
netting technique of their beaded collars. Bates and Lee offer a fine description of this
early beading technique:
Paiute women started beading a basket by sewing beads two at a time around the
basket’s rim. Once the basket’s circumference was encircled, the weaver passed her
needle through one bead of each bead pair, added a new bead, threaded through a bead of
the next pair, and continued this pattern.i
Sometimes a basket was woven by one person and beaded by another. While most
of the early beaded basket makers remain nameless, many of these first beaded baskets
are attributed to the Mono Lake Paiute.
Early Period: 1900-1929 By 1910, the beaded basket was an established tradition and already expanding
throughout the western Great Basin. The beaded basket manufactured in this phase
feature Czechoslovakian glass seed beads, brilliant opaque red beads, deeply transparent
beads, strong opaque background colors, and a wide variety of expanded, vertical, and
diagonal designs. Most of the beaded basket makers seem to be experimenting with color,
design, and size. Thus, the early beaded baskets reflected the constant adaptation and
innovation of their creators. The oval and lidded beaded basket was introduced, along
with the beaded bottles. Glass bottles from this phase were covered with traditional
32
twined basketry or with the new peyote stitch bead work mesh. Loom bead work designs
(copied from beaded belts, cuffs, sashes, watch fobs, etc.) were prominent, like the six-
and eight-pointed star.
At first we see the traditional, tightly woven coiled or twined basket with
painstaking individually sewn beads. Additionally, we find baskets with high shoulders,
more angular and more globular than their predecessors. But within a few years the
baskets were being made in a more timesaving manner with stitches being spaced and
beads applied in groups rather than individually. Furthermore, design concepts broadened
with animals and people as well as various geometric forms appearing in horizontal bead
work designs. ii This first generation of beaded basket makers were also influenced by
World War I patriotism, the ranching and farming reservation lifestyle, local celebrations
like the Fourth of July, religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas, and the
competitive Yosemite Park Indian Field Days.
<fig. 15>
In 1924, all American Indians received United States citizenship under a
constitutional amendment. With this citizenship came a new spirit, a feeling of
acceptance and belonging. Most of the first generation of beaded basket makers are
unknown; however, a few names were recorded by collectors, such as Abe and Amy
Cohn in Carson City, Nevada, and Ella M. Cain, in Bridgeport, California. Further,
present-day relatives have identified the work of their family members.
Beaded Bottles Also during this time, we see the emergence of beaded bottles. These beaded
basket bottles were originally utilitarian vessels, some water jugs, and some feed bottles.
With their broad shoulders and small neck, they typified the Paiute practical vessel. Some
33
had fiber handles and some did not. They could have been attached to a hunter’s belt to
carry either ground seeds or nuts for food, or water for the day. These rare beaded basket
bottles exemplify the transition between the purely practical and the “art for sale” basket.
They were most likely beaded when beads for basket making first arrived into the Mono
Lake area. Those in the collection are dated 1910-1920.
<fig. 16>
Two other examples of early beaded vessels include Baskets 105 and 106. Basket
105 is a small, 3” x 4” vessel made of one-stick, interlocking willow. The leather bottom
identifies this single rod, unusually shaped basket from Pyramid Lake. The pattern of
alternating horizontal bands is also unusual. This vessel could have been used to hold a
hunter’s cache, e.g., seeds, dried pounded acorn, etc. Basket 106, a 3” x 5 ½” miniature
water jug, boasts an unusual wrapped technique on its handles and top of the neck and an
expanded net bead work technique.
<figs. 17 & 18 >
Beaded Basket Makers Lucy Telles (1885-1955)
Born near Mono Lake, renown basket maker Lucy Telles grew up spending a
good deal of time both at Mono Lake and in the Yosemite Valley.iii Her grandmother and
mother were both basket makers, and she grew up weaving traditional baskets. But she
took basket making to another level, creating innovative, complex patterns.iv
<fig. 19>
As early as 1911 we can document Telles creating beaded baskets.v In fact, hers,
Basket 52, is one of the more notable baskets in the collection from this period.vi This
basket was exhibited at the 1926 Yosemite Field Days and is documented in photographs
34
with her sister Alice James’s children, Norman and Francis.vii This basket pattern is the
same that she used on several other coiled, three-rod baskets. According to Craig Bates,
the use of patterns from three-rod baskets on beaded baskets was uncommon.viii The
swastika, the main pattern of the basket, was popularized by non-Indian curio dealers
selling Indian material and Indian Good Luck symbols. To the Paiute Indian, a
“swastika” is a warning for mean spirits to stay away. This pattern is also found on
another basket from this period, Basket 89. It disappears when Hitler invades Poland.ix
<figs. 20 & 21 >
By the 1930s Lucy Telles was known “as the best basket maker of this region.”x
She spent her days, from the 1930s to her death in 1955, at Yosemite Village,
demonstrating basketry to visitors.
Nellie Charley (1867-1965) Nellie Charley grew up in Lee Vining, gateway to Yosemite. A basket maker her
entire life, she competed regularly at the Indian Field Days at Yosemite, winning a prize
in 1924. Her baskets reflect tradition and innovation in both weave pattern and bead work
design. Prolific, she adapted her baskets to twentieth century needs and culture, as
reflected in the baskets she designed for her family’s homes.xi
Some early work by Nellie Charley, dated between 1915-1920 is represented in
the Bernheimer collection (see Baskets 7, 15, 16, 27, 39, 72, 88, and 186). Basket 7
reflects a new patriotic design, representative of the World War I period of national
fervor. Here she uses a background of opaque white, and a design pattern of horizontally
connected multi-colored diamonds in bright red white hearts and cobalt blue beads with
cotton thread.
<fig. 22>
35
Baskets 15 and 16, dated approximately 1918-1920, are very similar in design and
clearly reflect the Umatilla influence. Both use the classic Italian red white heart beads in
a pattern of four horizontal arrows, two rows of connecting diamonds and two rows of
connecting zigzags. Basket 27 is unusual; here she changed the direction of her beading
in order to make the fletching of the arrows more even; i.e., she beaded from left to right
on the upper half of the arrow and right to left on the lower half, reversing her direction
four more times to complete the other two rows of arrows in the same fashion. Highly
unique, this basket represents an important change in the bead work style.xii Basket 39
also reveals the Umatilla influence, but here we see a pictorial, common in the Mono
Lake, Yosemite area. The pattern is composed of two square panels, bisymmetrical, with
two Indian chiefs talking as well as two women carrying a cone basket. Charley favors
using a star design on the bottom. Beads include the old “greasy yellows.”xiii
<fig. 23 & 24>
Basket 88 with its stylized spider design has a Paiute knotted start with a sharp
shoulder and its bead work, Mono Lake style, is attributed to Nellie Charley. Though
Basket 72 was woven in the Washoe style, lidded, with a wrapped start and gap stitch
weave, the bead work is attributed to Nellie Charley, reflective of the Mono
Lake/Yosemite style.
Edna Foster (1897-ND) This collection features many early beaded baskets attributed to Edna Foster, a
Walker River Paiute. Her husband’s father, Dobie Jim, was married to two of the Jim
sisters, Sally Jackson Jim (see Basket 110) and Suzie Jackson Jim.
Edna Foster participated in the Indian Field Days at Yosemite. In the 1924 event,
she won best bead work display, which included over 12 beaded baskets. The bead work
36
designs had both geometric and representational patterns.xiv Her daughter-in-law, Irma
Foster, remembers the stories Edna told, which have been passed down through the
family, of taking her baskets to Yosemite to sell in the 1920s. For hours she would sit on
a blanket and spread her baskets, waiting for the tourists to buy her baskets. Here she
learned the “arrogance of the rich”; wealthy ladies on vacation would stop by and
sometimes just take one of her baskets without paying for it; they would simply walk
away, saying nothing. It was not always “field days” for the Indian women.xv
<fig. 25>
Numerous baskets have been attributed to Edna Foster and include the following:
Baskets 12, 19, 25, 51, 58, 90, 102, 111, 114, 116, 117, 123, 128, 142, 143, 151, 154,
158, and 221. Inside Basket 25 is an Emporium Company tag (either 5499 or 54-19),
from the famed Abe Cohn, Carson City store of “Datsolalee” fame. Basket 111 is similar
to baskets from this period. Baskets 12, 25, 111, and 114 appear consistent with a number
of other beaded baskets produced in this period. Though the bead work is consistent with
Edna Foster’s work, Baskets 12 and 14 have Washoe wrapped starts and “gap stitch”
weave (stitched two to four beads at a time rather than one bead at a time). Basket 19 is
definitely a “trade” basket as well, a 6” x 3 ½” Klamath tulle with a three-rod peyote
stitch and a design of bracken fern root and redbud. The net beading technique involves
taking two beads at a time, but instead of going through only one of the beads in the next
row, she goes through two beads. At the end of the 1920s, Foster used this technique with
realistic animals and plant designs exhibited at June field Days. Baskets 90 and 102 have
a Paiute, or knotted start. Her bead work uses the gap stitch weave; baskets with these
large blocky designs could be finished quickly for non-Indian buyers.
<fig. 26>
37
Baskets 58 and 123 are probably from the 1920s and considered “spirit baskets.”
Spirit baskets used designs with symbolism that had particular meaning for its maker,
e.g., something seen in a dream. Basket 58 uses a “mud-dyed” black design material with
a three-bead netting technique. The frogs and tadpoles represent regeneration and
proliferation (for more spirit baskets see also Basket 66, 71, 82, 86).
<fig. 27>
Sally Jim (1875-1946) and Mattie Jim (ND) Basket 110, a three-rod, space-stitched Paiute basket, is attributed to the Jim
sisters, weavers Sally and Mattie, from Bishop, California. Baskets of this type were also
made by Nellie and Tina Charley.
<fig. 28>
Representative Mono Lake Paiute Style—Unattributed Basket 13, a 7¼” x 4¼” with lid, illustrates the weaving style of Mono Lake
weavers like Carrie Bethel and Minnie Mike beginning with a Paiute knotted start. The
bead work was sewn three to four beads at a time, similar to the technique that Nellie
Reynolds (north end of Mono Lake) used on her beaded bottles.
<fig. 29>
Basket 163, a small Paiute one-stick interlocking willow, dates itself from this
early period. Besides its three-bead net stitch technique, it has “1918” woven into the
design. It is reminiscent of the small, similar-sized beaded baskets in the Yosemite
Museum that came from Mrs. Abe Cohn’s collection.xvi Other baskets include Basket
249, in Mono Lake style similar to work done by Nellie Charley.
<fig. 30>
38
Low Shoulders Baskets Other baskets of interest from this period include several early “low shoulders”
basketry forms, Baskets 5 and 77. Basket 5 is a three-stick, high quality, Paiute coiled
design basket with sedge root and bracken fern root design beaded by a left-handed bead
worker. Basket 77 uses a three-bead net bead work technique, possibly by Minnie Tec (or
last name could be Tea or Lea) based on two baskets from Mrs. Abe Cohn’s private
collection.xvii
<fig. 31>
Trade Baskets/Paiute Beaded Even in this early period, as we noted with Nellie Charley, we see baskets that are
woven in one style, usually Washoe, and beaded in Paiute style, e.g., Baskets 95 and 97.
Basket 95 has a Washoe wrapped start and its extensive use of transparent beads defines
its age. Basket 97 was purchased at Mono Lake, California, and tagged. It utilizes the
Washoe wrapped start with a lid, and three-bead netted Paiute bead work. The Yosemite
collection has a similar beaded basket collected in Bridgeport in the 1920s. However,
Basket 96 is attributed to Shoshone basket maker Mary Stanton from Ely, Nevada. This
4½” x 4½” diagonally twined basket has the typical Shoshone buckskin rim and base.
Though its bead work is unfinished, it uses the Italian faceted beads—old “flapper”
beads, perhaps taken from a purse, and reflects an older Paiute style “cup.”xviii
<fig. 32>
Walker Lake Petroglyph Designs Two Paiute beaded baskets, Basket 60 and 98 incorporate the uncommon use of
humans, animals, and fish in their design. Both of their designs mimic the petroglyphs at
Walker Lake. Basket 60 has twenty-four figures (twelve blue, twelve pink), which
39
include a dog with its tail up. It uses antique transparent beads in a lazy brick stitch, sewn
six or seven beads at a time, sewn through the entire group of beads when passing
through the next time around—rare. Basket 98 also uses the antique transparent white
beads for background. Its design features horizontal rows of fish made of red white hearts
on the top half of the baskets, and sixteen human figures (eight green, eight white) on the
bottom half. The designs at Walker Lake show big, cutthroat trout, the size of humans,
which appear first at June Lake and continue to Mono Lake.
<figs. 33 & 34>
Walker River As early as the 1920s beaded baskets from the Walker River Paiute Reservation at
Schurz, Nevada appeared. Characteristics of Walker River/Schurz bead work designs
include a background of white opaque beads, a beaded over rim inside the basket, the use
of multi-color beads, often a “serrated wings,” “serrated diamonds,” or musical “fret”
pattern on the basket body and a flower or star pattern on the bottom of the basket.
Basket 10 is an old-style Walker River, using a non-interlocking gap stitch on an
8” x 3¾”. While generally well made, the abbreviation of the pattern on the basket’s
bottom (where the serrated diamond is cut off just after the pattern is half-way finished)
is quite unusual.
<fig. 35>
Washoe Basketry During this time, we see that the beading of baskets had spread to the Washoe
tribe who had a long-established tradition of fine basketry.xix Characteristics of Washoe
basketry include the “wrapped” start, a fitted lid, and an unbeaded rim. Washoe basket
makers are known for their meticulous preparation of weaving material, spending much
40
time to refine their willow and design materials. Between 1925 and 1945 we see the
“high shoulder” feature dominant in their basket profile. They tended to borrow bead
design patterns from beaded collars and neckpieces, sometimes mixing patterns together.
Also, designs were copied from the Paiute patterns. Some characteristics of design
include the main pattern outlined in another color, use of horizontal rows of triangles and
or zigzags, and a pattern on the bottom. Also, Washoe bead workers tend to use green
and orange more liberally than their Paiute neighbors.
Unattributed 1920s Basket 42 employs three-bead net technique and the traditional “flying geese”
design in the right direction. It was a quickly made basket with an oval start. Basket 46 is
a lidded “gift basket” which features mud-dyed black design material. Though this basket
is considered Washoe, the lid seems to have been added later and has a Paiute knotted
start. It is an unusual basket, using red white heart beads in the uncommon elements of
bead pendants and a beaded handle. This basket illustrates the ability to innovate with no
tradition to follow.
<fig. 36>
Basket 57 also features red white heart beads, in an antique brick stitch. The
pattern is rather dramatic with an unusual, yet well-executed floral motif and stacked
diamonds outlined in black. Basket 59 could be even earlier basket, 1915-1920, and was
quickly made using a wrapped start and net bead work. Another quickly made basket is
Basket 108. The bead worker used four or more beads per stitch to create the main
pattern, a big red coyote design. The three-bead netting of Basket 118 allowed the bead
worker to work quickly; like other bead workers, this person changed to a single-bead
technique on the basket’s basket, dropping beads in finishing the basket. Basket 167 is a
41
bit unusual in that the bead worker did not crowd her beads more on the upper half of the
basket. Basket 180 uses slightly faceted, square-ended “flapper” beads. Its green
background and wrapped start suggest its Washoe lineage. Basket 198, though not
innovative, boasts a well-executed basketry and bead work.
<fig. 37>
Spirit Baskets A spirit basket reflects use of a pattern whose symbolism has particular meaning
for its maker, e.g., something seen in a dream. Several Washoe baskets from this period
fall into this category. Baskets 66 and 82 are quite similar, both dated 1920-1940. Both
the start and general style of weaving confirm Washoe roots. Basket 86, from the early
1920s, uses some red white heart beads. It also has notches on the basket collar in
different beads.
<fig. 38>
Unattributed Pomo Baskets Characteristics of Pomo beaded basketry include the use of feathers, pendants,
and the frog stitch. This distinctive stitch features the bead woven into the basket, one-at-
a time, with at least one stitch spacing between beads.xx Several Pomo baskets date from
this early period. Dated 1900, Basket 243 is a standard early feather basket made for sale
to non-Indians. It has an odd, twined start, unusual on a coiled basket. Made of sedge root
on a three-rod willow foundation, the feathers are from approximately seven
meadowlarks (yellow) and nine to ten red-winged blackbirds (red-orange and black).
These birds were killed in spring when the feathers were new. They are fairly large for
use in weaving. The pendants are of abalone shell and glass beads with commercial
cordage.xxi Several Pomo baskets in the collection are simply dated post 1920. Baskets
42
232 and 233 are similar. Both are small (1¼” x 2½”), and both use the “frog stitch.” The
orange beads date Basket 233 post 1920.
<fig. 39>
Middle Phase: 1930-1950 This phase, which we will refer to as the classic period, is characterized by having
produced the largest number of beaded baskets and beaded basket makers, the second
generation of artists. Demonstrating expert skill as traditional weavers, these basket
makers created their “classic” beaded baskets in an atmosphere of expanding artistic
freedom. All the weaving and bead work standards were firmly establish, including
designs and patterns. The bead basket makers tended to be skilled traditional weavers.
Many of this second generation of artists attended BIA boarding schools, suffered
through the Great Depression and World War II, and sustained the 1934 Indian
Reorganization Act. They found a market for their baskets in the newly created “Wa-Pai-
Shone” (Washoe, Paiute, Shoshone) stores and co-ops in Carson City, Nixon, and Schurz
Nevada, and Death Valley, California, but could not sustain themselves on this income.
According to Norm DeLorme’s mother, Thelma Albright DeLorme, her Aunt Celia
Muzena “Smith”—Celia Arnot—worked as a housekeeper in Reno in the 1930s while
“Gramma always worked on her beaded bottles for Mrs Murphy.” In Coleville,
California, Lloyd Chichester, another beaded basket collector, recalls that Washoe
weaver and beaded basket weaver Minnie Fred worked for the Chichester family and sold
Washoe lidded beaded baskets to his grandmother.xxii
Predominantly, the core basket was a one-stick foundation and often lidded.
Bead-wise, the old antique beads and deep transparent turquoise blue were becoming
scarce or maybe undesired, for they did not appear as common on baskets. The beaded
43
basket and the beaded bottle continued to be popular curios. An added feature to the
beaded bottle became the buckskin base sewn onto the bottom, which replaced the
beaded base and the base design. Perhaps they added this buckskin base to minimize the
tendency of glass upon glass to shatter.
Even though the demand for all things Indian flourished, bringing high prices for
baskets, Indian people could still earn more money for their time in other occupations—
mostly working for non Indians.xxiii Because of financial considerations, the field did not
attract a younger generation.
Cohn Certificate Baskets Baskets 119 and 120 both bear “Cohn Certificates,” tagged from The Emporium.
Basket 119 was tagged, “Julia Sydes, Nov. 13, 1931.” Sydes was from Walker River and
the one-stick, interlocking stitch basket typifies what has become known as the Walker
River design. Basket 120 was tagged, “Mary Queep, Dec. 19, 1931.” This design (the
opaque white background with bisymmetrical serrated wings with diamond in the center)
first shows up in the 1920s; then it continues being used into the 1960s by Carrie Bethel,
Minnie Mike, and Mary Wilson. Each design differs, though, dependent upon the artist’s
style and bead work control.xxiv
<fig. 40>
Representative Mono Lake Basketry Several baskets exemplify Mono Lake basketry during the 1930s. Basket 9 is a
very fine example of Mono Lake Paiute polychrome, single rod basketry. Its design is
from dyed black bracken fern and red bud (fillers) with salt crystals. The bead work,
while not necessarily innovative and with a plain bottom, is finely done using one bead at
a time. Basket 23 is a classic “high shoulders” shape basket, and the basket is similar in
44
style to Nellie Charley and to the woman who exhibited her baskets in the June Lake
Field days.xxv Another early basket, Basket 11, recalls a beaded basket by Maggie
Howard in the Yosemite Museum collection (cat. #7223), both in construction of the
basket and in the “sloppy” bead work using overlay and three-bead netting.xxvi
<fig. 41>
Master Basket Makers The Bernheimer collection boasts baskets beaded by the classic, most noted bead
workers and weavers of this art form, including Maggie Howard, Celia Arnot, Carrie
Bethel, and her sister Minnie Mike. Although some of these basket makers had begun
making beaded baskets earlier, these particular baskets represent work done during this
approximate time frame.
Maggie Howard “Tabuce” (1870-1947) Several baskets (Baskets 24, 79, and 227) are attributed to Paiute weaver Maggie
Howard, also known as “Tabuce” (sweet grass nut root). Ms. Howard worked at
Yosemite demonstrating Indian cultural life and selling baskets (her own as well as
others) from 1929 until 1942. According to Bates, her baskets reflect more a concern for
“rapid production” than “attention to detail.”xxvii
xxviii
Baskets 79 and 227 are similar in stitch
type and start (Paiute knotted) to those in the Yosemite Collection. The use of green
thread and the anchoring of the basket’s bead work are consistent with Howard’s
temperament.xxix Also, both of these baskets seem to have used the same batch of gold
and yellow beads.xxx Basket 24 could have been Washoe based on its start (remember,
though, Howard did buy other weavers’ baskets to sell). However, Howard did
sometimes make round baskets with oval starts. Further, this basket divides the beaded
design into two fields, upper and lower, an uncommon practice Howard employs.
45
<fig. 42>
Celia Muzena Arnot (1896-1959) Three baskets, Basket 80, 100, and 133 have been attributed to Norm DeLorme’s
great aunt, Celia Arnot. Though her heritage is both Paiute (father) and Washoe (mother),
she learned basketry from her Grandmother, Ida Dock, a Washoe weaver who helped
raise her. Thus Arnot’s basketry is signature Washoe, with all baskets having the Washoe
wrapped start and all tightly woven. The diagonal slant of her bead work reflects her left-
handedness. Basket 100 shows the traditional Washoe design of serrated zigzags. At one
time this basket was lidded, and it was important that the lid fit. Basket 80 illustrates the
old-fashioned net pattern of bead work. She passed on her artistry and tradition to Norm
DeLorme, who in turn, taught her namesake, his own daughter Celia DeLorme.xxxi
<fig. 43>
During this time, two of the finest beaded basket makers (along with Lucy Telles)
were Minnie Mike and her sister Carrie Bethel.xxxii Though it is difficult to distinguish
between their work, several baskets have been attributed to them in this collection.
<fig. 44>
Minnie McGowen Mike (1896-1974) Attributed to Minnie Mike is Basket 1, a large (9¼” x 7¼”) basket with a snap
knobbed lid done in a one-stick, non-interlocking weave. The bead work is carefully
articulated in brick stitch, using antique opaque white, black, and red beads and the
overall impact is striking. It could be from the 1940s, but maybe even earlier as dark red
had been replaced by “hot orange” beads.
<fig. 45>
46
Basket 64 is more likely closer to a 1960 vintage and differs from the above
Basket 1 in its interlocking stitch, though still a one-stick foundation. Although most
recently attributed to Minnie Mike, this basket could have been done by either sister. xxxiii
It uses antique beads, in particular the red white heart beads, and reflects that master
precision in its brick stitch bead work.
<fig. 46>
Carrie McGowen Bethel (1898-1974) Two spectacular beaded baskets attributed to master beaded basket maker Carrie
Bethel are Baskets 130 and 259. Both baskets come from her “classic period” between
1945-1950; both use a one-stick, non-interlocking pattern with a tight gap stitch, knotted
start, and no design elements. Both feature the pristine brick stitch. Basket 130 features a
sky-blue background, a five-serrated diamond design with a five-point star on the bottom.
Basket 259 uses navy opaque beads for its background, a zigzag design of diagonal
orange stacked diamonds, three turquoise arrow point fillers, and a cobalt blue and amber
flower on its bottom. These baskets express the epitome of the beaded basket art form.
One basket that exhibits a “Carrie Bethel” style is Basket 177. The large, well-wrapped
clock spring start appears to be consistent with other baskets collected at Mono Lake. It
also reflects her fondness for using green beads.
<figs. 47 & 48>
Harry Alston (ND) Basket 21, a 5” x 3¼” Paiute polychrome, one-stick interlocking willow, is
attributed to Harry Alston.xxxiv It uses a brick peyote stitch to create a main pattern of
large zigzags with a filler fleur de lis pattern. This basket is reminiscent of another basket
47
collected in Bishop, California, in the 1960s.
xxxvi
xxxv The fleur de lis pattern recalls the
designs used by the sisters Sally and Mattie Jim in their three-rod coiled baskets.
<fig. 49>
Walker River Edie Young (ND)
Basket 29 was attributed to Edie Young.xxxvii It is 3” x 6” and uses the traditional
“flying geese” design, a serrated diagonal pattern.
<fig. 50>
Julia Benjamin (ND) Basket 44 is from the 1920s and attributed to Julia Benjamin.xxxviii It represents
Walker River style with a serrated wing pattern and measures 5½” x 2¾”.
<fig. 51>
Nina Dunn (ND) Bead work on Basket 138 has been attributed to Nina Dunn, mother to Julia
Benjamin (see Basket 44). The basket itself was a trade basket made by a Washoe
weaver.
<fig. 52>
Washoe Basketry Unattributed
Basket 26 boasts a serrated diamond pattern that was popular with both Washoe
and Paiute weavers during this period. Basket 35 employs an unusual banded pattern, one
easy to make but seldom attempted. Strangely, the direction of bead work changes in the
upper black area. The upper band of colors goes from left to right, the rest from right to
left.
<fig. 53>
48
An interesting design appears on Basket 48. It uses a horizontal zigzag, but its
spider-like pattern is unusual. Another unusual pattern is found on Basket 75; horizontal
rows of arrows change direction. Red white heart beads are used in the design. Red white
hearts are also found on Basket 131; its design features serrated zigzags. Basket 149
displays a simple, but well-executed pattern of “flying geese.”
<fig. 54>
We see the liberal use of green beads and the typical Washoe start in Basket 212.
Two baskets similar to one another from this period are Baskets 208 and 215. Both seem
to be from the 1940s, both use green beads, and both outline the diamond pattern in
black.
<fig. 55>
Pomo Annie Lake (1887-1988)
Annie Lake was one of the finest Pomo weavers of the century. Through her
efforts in the early 1940s, the Pomo weavers formed a collective and gained
recognition.xxxix
Basket 225, a fine piece done in gold yellow and green, reflects her distinctive
style of weaving. The beads indicate the basket could be have been made even earlier.
The pattern and color choice of Basket 230 lead it to Annie Lake. It is finely woven as
well and could have been made later, perhaps even as late as the 1960s.
<fig. 56>
Modern Phase: 1950-1970 This phase of beaded basketry is characterized by standardized bead work
patterns and established designs. The late phase represents the third generation of beaded
49
basket makers who were often linked to the earlier generations such as the Sam family
(see below) and the DeLorme family (see Contemporary period) linked to Celia Arnot
and Lillie Sanchez (a Shoshone weaver). During this time period we see the number of
beaded basket makers diminishing. This decline is, in part, due to the reduced economic
status of the traditional beaded basket maker and Indian basketry in general. But even
more devastating to the basket makers is the beginning of the decline in the quality of
strong, healthy willow, the mainstay of Paiute and Washoe basketry. Increased
development and the use of chemical pesticides have begun to weaken the willow plant (a
situation which only worsens).
Walker River Basketry During this period we find the baskets of several individuals, including one
particular Walker River family who passed the tradition from Grandmother Mary
Josephus Willie (aka Mary Josephus Willie and Mary Phoenix) to Mother Francis Willie
Sam to Granddaughters Lucille Tom and her sister, Clara Sam Castillo. Originally from
Mono Lake, this family developed their artistry at Walker River.
Mary Josephus Willie Phoenix (ND) Baskets 152, 184, 206, and 218 have been attributed to Mary Josephus Willie
Phoenix. When discovering Basket 152 in the photo album, Priscilla Carrera exclaimed,
“My Gramma’s work!” Priscilla also attributes Basket 218 to Mary Josephus Willie
Phoenix. Since these Walker River Paiute baskets from the 1950s or 1960s have a
Washoe “wrapped” start, we can assume this start was not exclusive to Washoe basketry.
Baskets 184, 206, and 218 all use the horizontal “fret” pattern with a multi-colored star
on the bottom; Basket 184 has a white background; Baskets 206 and 218 have a light
turquoise blue background.
50
<fig. 57>
Francis Willie Sam (1919-1982) Baskets 17, 18, 36, 68, 179, 200 and 205 have been attributed to Francis Sam.
Baskets 17 and 18 both appear to be from the 1950s to 1960s. Basket 17 has a Washoe
wrapped start and resembles Washoe basketry; it uses red bud as a design element. It
features the large serrated design with a white background. The bead work design of
Basket 18 is similar, but this being a grass bundle Western Mono trade basket with a fern
root design element. Basket 36, Paiute-woven with a devil’s claw design element, utilizes
the old “flying geese” bead work pattern giving one the feeling of movement; again we
see use of the serrated design (triangles) in this oval basket. A note inside Basket 179
says “Lorena Burns,” nee Lorena Thomas (Sam’s daughter), but Craig Bates says that the
basket start does not resemble hers that reside in the Yosemite Museum.xl The basket
typifies Walker River bead work design, nicely executed. Basket 200 has a Paiute knotted
start, while Basket 205 a Washoe wrapped start. The bead work is Walker River design,
and Clara Castillo attributes these baskets to her mother.
<fig. 58>
Clara Sam Castillo (ND) Baskets 124, 141, 157, 181, 183, 185, 187, 256, and 422 have been attributed
(mostly by herself) to Ms. Castillo. It was delightful to watch Ms. Castillo’s expression as
she uncovered her own baskets among the books of photo albums she graciously
perused.xli All of these baskets seem to be from the same period, 1950s to 1970s. Her
basket and bead work denote classic Walker River design (beading over rim, design on
the basket bottom, with frequent use of white opaque bead background and the serrated
pattern). Predominate colors include light turquoise blue, black, yellow, cobalt blue, light
51
green, and red. Earlier, Craig Bates had noted that Baskets 124 and 141 were likely made
by the same person (before Ms. Castillo recognized her work). Both baskets use the
wrapped start, but Paiute weaving. Ms. Castillo acknowledged that she frequently beaded
over “trade” baskets, anything she could find. Thus, we do find her bead work on baskets
with both Paiute knotted starts (Basket 187) and Washoe wrapped starts (see above).
<figs. 59 & 60>
Lucille Tom (ND) Basket 14 was tagged, “Lucille Tom,” and remains attributed to her. This basket
from the 1960s was a trade basket, woven by Washoe weaver Dora Johnson. Ms. Tom
uses the Walker River design with a white background, a multi-colored serrated pattern,
and a star on the bottom.
<fig. 61>
Lorena Thomas (ND) Another Walker River basket from the 1950s is Basket 78, attributed to Lorena
Thomas.xlii This basket features a Washoe wrapped start, but a bold Walker River bead
work design with a black background and horizontal rows of frets and arrows in orange
and green. Basket 197, a small 3¼ “x 1½” basket, also features her bead work with a
Washoe wrapped start.
<fig. 62>
Irene Cline (ND) Basket 83 was attributed to Irene Cline.xliii This 2½” x 5” basket could be from
1960s-1980s and comes from the Walker River area. The brown background is unique.
Baskets 201 and 205 could also be hers.
<fig. 63>
52
Mary Wilson (ND) Bead work on Baskets 3, 6, and 140 have been attributed to Walker River bead
worker Mary Wilson. Both of the baskets were beaded on trade baskets: Basket 3 shows a
fret design with fillers on an Eskimo basket; Basket 6, a typical Walker River pattern on a
Southern California “mission” basket; Basket 140 uses another Walker River pattern of
serrated wings on a Coushatta lidded basket.
<fig. 64>
Unattributed Walker River Basket Bead Work Attributed to the Walker River bead workers include the following baskets:
Basket 6, a trade basket (beaded on a Southern California Mission tribe basket with a
grass bundle foundation); Basket 22, an Alaskan Eskimo tundra grass, trade basket with
knob lid and typical Walker River design; Basket 34, a “boat” basket, 7½” x 5” x 3½”
oblong, using three to four beads at a time to create a sunburst pattern; Baskets 170 and
173 similar to Baskets 181 and 157 respectively, which are attributed to Clara Castillo
and thus could be hers. Other baskets include Basket 200, 1950s-1970s; Basket 256,
1960s; Basket 257, 1950s; Basket 258, 1960s-70s.
<fig. 65>
Washoe Neola Pete (ND)
Neola Pete was taught to weave and bead by her aunt, Minnie Fred. Two baskets,
Baskets 191 and 193 have been attributed to Ms. Pete. Basket 191, dated 1950+ is small,
3¼” x 3”, with a lid, woven with an interlocking stitch and implementing a redbud design
element. The background is royal blue, with four alternating stylized green turtles with
red fillers, as well as green diamonds and zigzags. It is a well-crafted basket both in
weave and bead work, similar in style to Carrie Bethel’s work. Basket 193 differs from
53
Basket 191 in that is uses a non interlocking, “gap” stitch, but retains the Washoe
wrapped start. It uses a typical Washoe design.
<fig. 66>
Joanne Martinez (ND) Basket 224 could possibly be hers. It is typical of the small, made for sale baskets
produced by Washoe weavers. It uses multi-color beads in a triangle design with a white
beaded rim.
<fig. 67>
Margie Washoe George (ND) Margie George, sister to basket maker Dora Washoe Johnson (see Basket 14
beaded by Lucille Tom), was attributed to weaving Basket 74. This is a 5” x 2 ¾” basket
from the later twentieth century. The bead worker is unknown, but beading design is
Walker River.
<fig. 68>
Unattributed Basket 38 is a modern Washoe basket done by a left-handed weaver using a brick
stitch bead work technique. The four, bisymmetrical designs on the basket employ a
butterfly pattern; however, this butterfly is different from the butterflies that appear on
Paiute designed-baskets. Also, the flower on the base is unusual.
<fig. 69>
Another unusual design appears in Basket 178. Here we find an unusual modern
horse motif, using bisymmetrical two blue horse and two red rabbits. Bisymmetrical
shooting stars appear on the bottom, and a row of multi-colored diamonds around the rim
is unconnected. Its split stitches are unusual, but not uncommon.
<fig. 70>
54
Basket 222 is a miniature using red, blue, black and yellow beads. It is similar to
other “made for sale” baskets of this period.
<fig. 71>
Pomo Mabel McKay (1907-1993)
Mabel McKay was both a medicine woman and a basket maker, making her first
basket at age six and selling them at eighteen or nineteen. When asked if she had learned
basketry from her Grandmother, she replied “My grandmother taught me nothing….Only
the spirit trained me. …I only follow my Dream.”xliv
Basket 231 is a high quality, small (2¾” x 1¼”), open bottom basket, and could
likely be attributed to Mabel McKay. The foundation is of commercial cane, which was
favored by most of the Pomo women who made beaded baskets during this period. This
woman trimmed her material extremely well.xlv She uses the Pomo beading technique
known as the “frog stitch,” in which a bead is woven into the basket, one-at-a time, with
spacing between each bead.
<fig. 72>
Contemporary Phase: 1970-Present Fortunately, the story continues with a fourth and fifth generation of beaded
basket makers artistry found in the Bernheimer collection, but with even smaller numbers
than before. Here we see the children and grandchildren of the previous time frame. The
DeLorme family is a striking example of the determination to keep the traditions of
basketry, as well as Paiute culture, alive. Norm DeLorme and former wife Bernie
DeLorme learned how to bead baskets from Norm’s Great Aunt Celia Arnot and how to
weave from Grandmother Adele Sampson. Bernie DeLorme’s mother Lillie Sanchez was
55
a Shoshone weaver. Rebecca “Becky” Eagle learned from her cousin Norm; her sister
Sandy Eagle also beads.xlvi In this collection we find the tradition extends to Fay
DeLorme and Celia DeLorme, Norm and Bernie’s daughters; Celia intends to pass it on
to her own daughter Ava.
Characteristically, this family all feature individualized and personal preferences
in weaving techniques and bead work design. Often their designs are inspired by personal
dreams or by their cultural heritage. Though inspiration may come from others,
contemporary basket makers respect the taboo against copying dream-inspired mystical
designs created by others or elders. Thus, individuality and innovation has been
encouraged among the contemporary generation.
During this period entirely new methods of learning and teaching basketry have
emerged, including self-taught weavers and bead workers as well as the Nevada State
Arts Apprentice Program. A few Paiute Indian weavers learned to make non-traditional
Great Basin core baskets such as the coiled “pine needle basket” from Eastern America
and the coiled “horsehair basket” from the Papago tribe in Arizona. Robert Baker, Jr.
founded an Indian organization of native basketry students, stating he did not want to see
the end of the Paiute buckskin-covered baby basket. And Mary Lee Fulkerson founded a
non-Indian organization that encourages and teaches the use of non-traditional weaving
materials and techniques to their students.
Beaded Basket Makers Norm DeLorme (1952-)
Norm DeLorme’s heritage is both Paiute and Washoe. He learned beaded
basketry from his Great Aunt Celia Arnot, a Washoe. He and his cousin Sandy Eagle
sometimes produce the unique “frog stitch” as attributed to Celia Arnot. He also enjoys
56
employing the old-style three-bead net bead work technique. His signature appears in his
two “coyote” beads or random beads found on his baskets.xlvii
Only one large (7¼” x 3¾”) beaded basket, Basket 8, is found in the collection.
This willow basket, dated 1978-79, features a bracken fern design element. The 10/o
modern beads create a white opaque background with serrated zigzag design of cobalt
blue, light turquoise and gray. The bottom displays a six-pointed star of cobalt blue; the
coyote beads sit on the bottom and side.
<fig. 73>
His other basket, Basket 206, is from the 1990s and considered a “micro mini,”
measuring 1¾” x 1” x 1”. This one-stick, interlocking tiny willow basket uses 13/o
modern beads with a periwinkle blue background and a design of three spiders in
eggshell white.
<fig. 74>
Bernadine “Bernie” Sanchez DeLorme (1951- ) Bernie is member of the Duckworth Shoshone tribe and comes from a family of
weavers, including her mother Lillie Sanchez. However, she learned how to bead baskets
from Norm’s Great Aunt Celia.xlviii
Two of Bernie’s beaded baskets, Baskets 139 and 244 grace the collection. Basket
139, a one-stick interlocking willow, is from the 1970s and measures 4¼” x 2¼”. Here
we find 12/o and 13/o modern beads forming an opaque white background and a pattern
of vertical rows of connected opaque black and transparent red diamonds extending onto
the base. In Basket 244, dated from the 1980s, Bernie was the bead worker, not the
weaver of the basket. This willow basket features a Washoe wrapped start, a one-gap
stitch weave, with a design element of sunburned willow on the lid, and bi-symmetrical
57
bracken fern and red-bud on the sides. She uses 10/o modern beads to form an opaque
turquoise blue background, a striking main design of three yellow butterflies, and minor
zigzag designs of diagonally stacked triangles with reds, oranges and forest greens. The
lid has three yellow diamond fillers.
<fig. 75>
Sandra “Sandy” Eagle (1961- ) Sandy Eagle’s heritage is Paiute/Washoe and Shoshone/Bannock. Her baskets are
known for their meticulously prepared weaving material, miniature sizes and often the
use of antique beads. She also uses the frog stitch, which she learned from her Great Aunt
Celia Arnot.
Basket 300, dated 2005, measures 3¼” x 1½” and illustrates the frog stitch. Here
Ms Eagle uses 10/o modern metallic red, turquoise and gold beads and adorns the rim
with pheasant feathers. Basket 268, dated 2000+, is a “micro mini,” measuring 1” x 3/8”.
Here she again uses the frog stitch, with 14/o modern gold beads for background, an
interlocking zigzag pattern, and iridescent feathers on the rim.
<fig. 76>
Rebecca “Becky” Eagle (1964- ) Becky Eagle is also of Paiute/Washoe and Shoshone/Bannock heritage. She
usually prefers the larger size 10/o beads, the diagonal peyote stitch and employs an
extensive palette of bead colors.xlix The six willow baskets, Baskets 264, 265, 266, 267,
269, and 272 are all miniature size and date 2000+.
<fig. 77>
Basket 264 measures 7/8” x ½”. Here we find 11/o modern beads forming a
maroon red background and a design pattern of vertical and horizontal columns with a
58
red band in the center. Basket 265 is similar, measuring ¾” x ½”. It has 10/o modern
beads, creating a white background with a red band at the rim. Basket 266 measures ¾” x
½”. Modern 10/o beads of transparent green form the background while gunmetal black,
red, orange, and yellow form the design pattern of connected diamonds. Basket 267
measures 7/8” x 5/8”. Its background is turquoise blue with a zigzag design of blue, red
and orange of 11/o modern beads. Basket 269 measures ½” x 3/8” and uses 13/o modern
beads of aqua blue for background and bands of red, orange yellow for design. Basket
272 is very small, measuring 3/8” x ¼”. It uses 13/0 modern opaque white for
background and royal blue, turquoise, red and orange to form a design of vertical
columns.
<fig. 78>
Fay DeLorme (1974 -) Fay DeLorme, daughter of Norm DeLorme and Bernie DeLorme, learned beaded
basketry from her parents. She has one basket in the collection, Basket 301, which dates
2000+ and measures 1½” x ¾”. She uses 13/o modern opaque white beads for
background and metallic maroon beads to create a zigzag pattern.
<fig. 79>
Celia DeLorme (1981- ) Celia DeLorme, named for Great Aunt Celia Arnot, is intent upon keeping the
beaded basket tradition alive.l She prefers the sparkling 13/o Charlotte cut beads and the
vertical “brick” stitch. She often chooses whimsical patterns of animals or insects moving
around her baskets. Two baskets, Baskets 253 and 261, demonstrate her promise.
<fig. 80>
59
Basket 253, from the mid-1990s, measures 3¾” x 2”, and has a devil’s claw circle
design at the bottom. She uses 10/o modern beads of opaque gray. Basket 261 from
2000+, measures 1¾” x 1” x 1”. Here she uses 13/o modern beads to form a periwinkle
blue background and a design of three spiders in opaque eggshell white.
<fig. 81>
Conclusion Simply by reviewing the different periods of beaded basketry represented here,
we can see the significant loss of people practicing this tradition. In the mid-twentieth
century we find many beaded basket makers living in areas from Mono Lake, California,
to Walker River Reservation in Nevada. In this collection we see contemporary artists
living in Reno and its outskirts (Wadsworth): no one from Mono Lake, or Walker River,
or Pyramid Lake is beading baskets. Again, there may be other Paiute/Washoe beaded
basket makers, but not here and not many.
By listening to the conversations with contemporary beaded basket makers, we
will begin to understand why there are so few. We will hear the difficulties in obtaining
good native materials as well as finding the time to devote to this time-consuming
process. But if we listen carefully, we will also hear the dedication to keeping the
tradition alive.
i Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 81 (see chap. 2, n.9). ii Ibid., 82. iii For more information about individual beaded basket makers from the early and classic periods, see Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation. iv Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 172 (see chap. 2, n.9). v Ibid.
60
vi Because beaded basket makers left no name on their work, baskets have been “attributed” to certain artists based on criteria discussed later. vii Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 172 (see chap. 2, n.9). viii Craig Bates (historian), personal interview by Carlon Andre and Carole McAllister, August 1999. ix Ibid. x Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 175 (see chap. 2, n.9). xi Ibid., 147. xii Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xiii Ibid. xiv Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 98, 100 (see chap. 2, n.9). xv Irma Foster, personal interview by Carole McAllister, 2005. xvi For examples from Mrs. Abe Cohn’s collection, see Yosemite cat. # 23, 38, and 424. xvii See Yosemite Museum cat. #38, 423, and 424; see also Basket 221; Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xviii For examples of these other baskets, see C. Hart Merriam collection at UC Davis; see also Yosemite cat #647, 648, and 649 from Pyramid Lake; #650 from Mono Mills; #651 from Bishop. xix For more information, see Marvin Cohodas, Degikup: Washoe Fancy Basketry 1895-1935 (Vancouver: Fine Arts Gallery of the University of British Columbia, 1979). See also Marvin Cohodas, "Washoe Innovators and their Patrons" in The Arts of the North American Indian: Native traditions in Evolution. ed. Edwin L.Wade (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, 1986), 216. xx See the Pomo “frog stitch” influence on the work of contemporary Paiute basket maker Sandy Eagle, Baskets 268 and 300. xxi Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xxii Lloyd Chichester (collector), personal interview by Carole McAllister, 1999. xxiii Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 113 (see chap. 2, n.9). xxiv Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xxv Ibid. xxvi Ibid. xxvii Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 154 (see chap. 2, n.9). xxviii See Yosemite Museum beaded basket cat. O. 7865; unbeaded basket cat. no. 7863. xxix See Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation, 154 (see chap. 2, n.9). xxx Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xxxi For more information on Celia Arnot and her influence see Mary Jane Fulkerson, Weavers of Tradition and Beauty: Basketmakers of the Great Basin (see chap. 2, n.1). xxxii For more information, see Bates and Lee, Tradition and Innovation (see chap. 2, n.9). xxxiii Attributed to Minnie Mike by Norm DeLorme. xxxiv Basket 21 was attributed to Harry Alston by Raymond Andrews. xxxv For more information, see the Charles Johnson Collection, Modesto, California. xxxvi See Yosemite cat #s 325, 505; 25, 500; 25, 504; 25, 501 for illustrations of the Jim sisters’ unusual patterns; see also Hearst Museum of Anthropology cat #s 1-26888, -26890. Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xxxvii Attributed to Edie Young by Priscilla Carrera. xxxviii Attributed to Julia Benjamin by Priscilla Carrera. xxxix For more information on Annie Lake and Pomo basketry, see Suzanne Abel-Vidor, Dot Brovarney and Susan Billy, Remember Your Relations: Elsie Allen Baskets, Family, And Friends (Ukiah, California: Heyday Books, Grace Hudson Museum, and Oakland Museum of California, 1996); Elsie Allen is Annie Lake’s daughter. xl Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xli See Chapter 5 for more information. xlii Attributed to Lorena Thomas by Norm DeLorme. xliii Attributed to Irene Cline by Raymond Andrews. xliv Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Berkeley, U California P, 1995), 2.
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xlv Craig Bates, personal interview, August 1999. xlvi See Chapter 5 for more information. xlvii Ibid. xlviii Ibid. xlix Ibid. l Ibid.
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Chapter 5 Conversations
Over time, the story of this beaded basket collection has grown from an attempt to
identify the beaded basket maker to understanding an art form. It has begun to
accumulate stories that detail the evolution of an art form as well as the stories of culture,
tradition and spirit that represent the lives of the artists past and present. The story of a
basket collection tells the stories of these artists—their spirituality and their
connectedness. The stories presented here—those of Julia Parker, Clara Castillo, Bernie
DeLorme, Norm DeLorme, Celia DeLorme, and Becky Eagle—reflect the respect for and
ties to the traditions of their grandmothers and aunts, fathers and mothers, as well as their
spiritual connections to the land and nature and all it provides them.i
All of these basket makers have work represented in the collection, with one
exception—renowned Miwok basket maker Julia Parker. She is included as she provides
us with connections to the most respected beaded basket makers from the past
represented here, as well as giving life to the process of basket making itself.
Julia Parker (1929- ) One of the first stories we heard that reflected the significance of place and
tradition in a personal narrative was that of world-renowned basket maker Julia Parker.
Considered herself a “tradition” at Yosemite, Parker has worked there since 1960, in the
museum exhibit room, artfully weaving her baskets and sharing her art before visitors and
as their guide to the living history village recreated outside.ii
She began telling us her life story as we walked to the part of Yosemite where her
ancestors once lived, so she could show us the marks left on the boulders from the
63
grinding of nuts. She begins with her apprenticeship, her ties to her heritage: “The story
of my basketry goes back to when I first went to Stewart Indian School…Every chance I
had I’d go to the museum and look at those beautiful baskets [made by Dat So La Lee—
premier Washoe basket maker of the twenties]—never thinking I would some day
become friends with the willows and the redbuds and the fern roots and all the plants that
go into the baskets.”iii
<fig. 82>
As she states above, Parker’s apprenticeship began in the 1950s by watching Lucy
Telles, her husband’s grandmother, demonstrate weaving where Parker now sits. She
continued her tutelage under Tina Charlie, her husband’s great aunt, and by the 1920s one
of the finest basket weavers in the region. She later gained even more expertise under the
mentorship of two more extraordinary talents—Paiute women Carrie Bethel and her
sister Minnie Mike. All three of these women competed regularly at both regional and
international expositions. Their baskets continue to represent the height of the art form
and are highly valued by collectors. Parker reflects, “When Ralph [her husband] would
go hunting, I would visit Carrie and Minnie; Carrie would show me how to weave and
bead baskets. [She] had a root cellar under her house, and she would share her willow. It
was so nice.”iv
Following the traditions of the grandmothers and aunts, Parker learned her art:
“When I made the basket, I began working with the willows, and after a while they
introduced me to sedge. They introduced me to the bracken fern and the California
redbud. And so I began to learn, and mostly going to the museum, looking at the baskets.
Most of all becoming friends with these plants—knowing that these plants are going to
64
talk to you and they do. The plants talk to you, they let you know when they’re ready.
They I feel, are the superior being—the plants. We are just the tool.”v
<fig. 83>
She learned to cultivate a relationship with her plants and her fellow basket
makers based on reverence and respect: “Borrow, don’t steal. The way of fellow basket
maker friends; don’t forget the old way, Julia. Take from the earth and say ‘Please.’ Give
back to the earth and say ‘Thank you.’” vi In discussing how she begins her process of
preparing her materials, Julia adds, “Strip the willow till it sings to you.”vii
Just as the voice of her elders inspires her work, so does the significance of place.
Yosemite’s spectacular natural beauty and abundant plants and wildlife offered both
spiritual and material resources for Parker’s work. Here she blossomed as an artist, not
just inspired by the natural beauty, but by the magnificent designs in the Ahwahnee
Hotel. Reflecting back she says, “I would go to the hotel and look at Lucy Telles’s big
basket. Next, I would look at the geometric patterns in the curtains and on the walls, the
patterns in the stained-glass windows in the great sitting room...I would wonder what to
concentrate on. I would want to include all.”viii
Only six years after she began her apprenticeship, Parker was asked to donate a
tri-colored coiled basket to the United States Ski Association, which was later presented
to the winner of the International Skiing Championship. She was also honored by being
asked to gift Queen Elizabeth II with one of her beaded baskets upon the Queen’s visit to
Yosemite in 1983.
Like her elders before her, Parker continues to work to keep the basket making
tradition alive for succeeding generations. She was instrumental in the decision to
organize a meeting of the California Indian basket weavers in the early 1990s. She has
65
passed the tradition of basket weaving onto her daughter, Lucy Parker Telles and
granddaughter Ursula Jones. So Parker continues the tradition and the spirit of the
Yosemite-Mono Lake basket makers—connecting us in respect and reverence to the earth
and the grandmothers who will tell their stories if we take the time to listen.
Clara Castillo Clara Castillo graciously welcomed us into her home on the Walker River
Reservation, in May of 2005. She had beaded her woven baskets for over thirty years, but
she was finished with beadwork. When asked why she stopped beading, Clara replied,
“I’m too old. It is hard work, getting my own material, then weaving. That’s the hard
part, doing the weaving.” I asked her if she missed working on her beadwork. She smiled
and shook her head no, and said, “My eyes are too tired.”
Then we asked her if she would like to look through the picture albums containing
the Bernheimer collection of beaded baskets to see if she could recognize any of the
baskets. Enthused, she began the journey through the collection. When she came to a
basket that she recognized as her own, she would cover her eyes and smile or
laugh…almost amazed to discover where her basket had found its home.
<fig. 84>
I asked her where her ideas for bead designs came from. She replied, “it all
depends on how you feel that day. We all used each other’s designs.”
Ms. Castillo came from a family of beaded basket makers. Her mother, Francis
Willie Sam did beadwork on her baskets and some of those also appear in the collection.ix
Ms. Castillo also recognized the work of her Grandmother, Mary Josephus Willie.x She
said, “there is no one left that knows how to weave. Out of five children, her
66
daughter…is the only one who beads (she beads salt & pepper shakers and other
containers).
As she poured over the hundreds of photos, I noticed her hands: they were
remarkably lovely! Even after collecting and processing material for over thirty years, her
long, delicate fingers still garnered long, beautiful nails. When I commented on them, she
laughed and remarked, “People would look at my beadwork and then at my nails and say,
‘Yeah, right, you made these baskets.’”
Bernadette Sanchez DeLorme (1951- ) One of the most recognized beaded basket makers, Bernie DeLorme is a member
of the Duckworth Shoshone tribe and comes from a long tradition of artistry. Her mother,
Lillie Sanchez is a weaver; both her aunts, Evelyn Pete and Edna Mike were
accomplished weavers who learned the tradition from their mother. And Bernie’s sisters,
Arvilla Mascarenas and Virginia DeDee Sanchez, have been learning the weaving
process from their mother.
Though her work appears in the Smithsonian, Bernie does not have the luxury of
being a full-time artist. Rather, she works full-time at the Native American clinic at
Reno-Sparks Colony, allocating only night and weekends to her art. “It’s just so hard to
find time to sit and do it.”xi
All of our several long interviews took place outside, at Bernie’s suggestion. The
first time we met out in her yard, sitting around a wooden table, which displayed several
of her finished baskets, with the willows on the ground and the tools beside her. Here she
processed and worked her baskets. She “loves to work outdoors—the lighting is better,
the air, the sense, better.” Here she is “at peace” with her surroundings. The yard may be
67
small, more dirt than grass, with the freeway and the Reno casinos looming in the
background, but here her spirit soars.
<fig. 85>
The completed baskets on the table range from simple, round willow baskets a
few inches in diameter decorated with the dark design of devil’s claw to even smaller
ones covered in beads the size of a few grains of sand. One stands out—a magnificent
cobalt blue and orange beaded basket about ten inches in diameter and eight inches high
featuring three rows of circling butterflies. This basket won a best of show award at a
Native American festival in Lake Tahoe, but that part of the story was not readily given
by Bernie.
Bernie DeLorme was introduced to basket making by ex-husband Norm
DeLorme’s grandmother, Adele Sampson. Norm and Bernie would go out with Adele
and help her gather and then process the willows. She remembers “sitting there splitting
willows for her—she would leave material for me to clean and pick—Adele found it hard
to get around, so we helped her.”xii From Adele she learned both weaving and twining.
Norm’s Aunt Celia (Arnot) taught her the most about beads: “Aunt Celia was
conservative with her beads—she did not have easy access to beads—not in Nevada.”xiii
But Bernie learned how to bead from Norm. Together she and Norm created beaded
baskets together for many years. They would do the baskets first as the baskets took
much longer than the beading. Now she feels that “baskets are incomplete when they are
not beaded.”xiv
Bernie muses about the process involved in basket making, the gathering of the
willows. “We would go in the fall to gather the willows. Then the willows were long; we
could split them and make string from them. Now our willows are different. Sometimes
68
they split really well, and sometimes they’re buggy and don’t split well at all. They break
easily.”xv
She continues, “We’re always scouting out willows. The areas to find willows are
dwindling—when you find an area, you can’t pick all of it. You must take care of it so
you can go back.”xvi People are protective of their areas. Bernie knows people who trade
the old ladies a basket a year to let them use their willow area. The areas to find good
materials are disappearing. “Now willows are plowed under for apartments, or heavily
sprayed, or have bugs. The quality is just not like it used to be—air and water come into
play to grow willows and we continue to poison the soil.”xvii
Bernie reflects a quiet integrity of spirit, of purpose. “It’s a value thing for me. To
sit down quietly, do something, accomplish something. That is the value.”xviii For Bernie,
it’s not about the value of a piece—it’s about the value of the process. “There are people
out there who create just to sell—everything they do is geared to sell.” She says,
“especially don’t sell the first thing you make—I gave the first basket I made to my
daughters. I didn’t know what I was doing—but you can make it come out all right. It
doesn’t matter how many times you do something, you can straighten it out. You have a
sense of discipline—You really have to want to do it in this fast-paced society.”xix
<fig. 86>
And that concern for the process is again seen in her beading technique: one bead
at a time—which means it can take an hour to go around a basket once. Bernie says she
has worked on some baskets for as long as a year, particularly those using small (size
thirteen) cut beads. One such basket, an 8” x 10” dark blue with reds and oranges, was
purchased by the University of Nevada Museum.
69
As for her designs and colors, her sources are many and varied. Sometimes she
has dreamed about a basket and its colors, and the finished product is not quite what she
had imagined. She has imagined colors—knew a design needed a particular color. “The
butterfly pattern—I drew the design on the back of an envelope, and then looked
everywhere for that blue. It had to be that blue. Sometimes I sketch a pattern, sometimes
not; sometimes I just go with it and wing it; it depends on the piece.”xx She draws heavily
from the natural world that surrounds her—the butterflies, the sunsets—“the colors are
fun to come upon—I see the sunset and the colors look so pretty. I see designs on the old
Pendleton blankets. Walking through museums, I will see things that inspire me—or
sometimes just driving along I will see something. Sometimes I don’t even know what
size or shape it will be when I start the basket.”xxi
The next time we meet, Bernie reiterates the importance of tradition, of keeping
one’s culture alive. Bernie remarks, “What’s important is to keep the family in it. Not sell
it out. Weaving is in the family and passed through the family. It has been in the family
for so many years.”xxii
Bernie continues to pass on the tradition. One of her daughters, Celia DeLorme,
has become an accomplished beaded basket maker as has her former husband’s cousin
Becky Eagle. Bernie has taught basket making to small classes. But she doesn’t want to
teach “just anyone…no huge classes.” Basket making should be taught one-on-one. And
through grants, she had been able to train apprentice basket makers such as Linda Comas.
There is too much involved in the process to teach but to the very few who really want to
learn. It takes so much time and effort—especially since the areas of willow are
dwindling.
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And Bernie DeLorme continues to weave and to bead and to teach her artistry,
keeping the tradition of beaded basketry alive.
Norm DeLorme (1952- ) Norm DeLorme lives in a modest home on the Paiute reservation, located in a
high traffic area of Reno. Norm leads me into the back yard where we sit around a table
and begin our discussion. He is of Paiute/Washoe descent, and he begins our talk by
drawing his family tree. He wants me to see the connections between the generations—
the connections of traditional art, linking the family both back to the grandmothers, down
through the grandchildren and cousins, and continuing yet another generation to his own
daughters. From learning his ancestry, we understand how the art of basketry and beading
baskets descends through family.
Over the course of several hours while we pour over the photos, I realize his vast
knowledge of Paiute/Washoe beaded baskets. I learn about the families of bead workers
and weavers who carry on the tradition, how to distinguish one family’s work from
another as well as one tribe’s from another. But as I listen to him speak about his
introduction to the world of basket making, I hear the values that permeate his life and his
work: the importance of family and the respect and reverence for place and tradition.
<fig. 87>
As a twelve or thirteen-year old child, Norm beaded bottles, made rosettes, and
did some loom work. It was not until his early twenties that he began working on baskets,
although his grandmother Adele and his Great Aunt Celia had been making baskets all
their lives. His grandmother gave Norm a large, beaded basket bowl for high school
graduation, and from then on he began collecting her pieces. In his twenties after he and
71
Bernie had married they went with his grandmother to get the willows. Then he and
Bernie began to work together, gathering the materials, making baskets, and beading
baskets. Sometimes one would start one and the other finish. His grandmother often made
a basket and asked him to bead it, but his Great Aunt Celia taught him about beading. In
comparing the two, he notes, “Celia did much more refined work artistically.”xxiii
When I asked if the patterns ran in families, he remarked, “a spiritual pattern has
special meaning to the maker, and it could have been passed down.”xxiv In general, the
weavers were highly influenced by one another. Norm’s designs do have particular
meanings. For example, “a diamond pattern means a good life and a strong family.”xxv
Some designs are traditional, like the mountain and step designs. His contemporary
designs include butterflies, spiders, florals, snakes, and arrowheads. Sometimes people
get ideas or patterns from dreams—what they see in dreams produces a very
individualized work.
“Baskets were not just made with commerce in mind,” says Norm. “There is a
spiritual element of the work as well as the finished products. Elements of the spirit of a
person are inside the baskets. The baskets need to be treated reverently, blessed when
they are being made and the beads as well. Sometimes a basket dance is held. But one
needs to talk to the baskets, honor the baskets. This element should not be neglected.”xxvi
As we sit in his back yard, I can’t help but notice the huge, towering Hilton sign
which serves as a backdrop to the reservation. When later in the day I ask him to pose for
photos, I suggest we try to keep the Hilton out of the picture—he insists we keep it in.
That sign has been a part of his daily life, coloring his landscape. Of course, he is right.
The sign belongs.
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<fig. 88>
As we speak, place continually enters the conversation. Norm intersperses how
there are only a few places, now, where he can find the materials for his baskets, a
concern echoed by others. Native people are forced to travel further and further into the
mountains to find materials. The early basket makers, e.g., his grandmother and his aunt,
had better access to materials; places closer at hand; they didn’t have to travel as far to
find good materials. Now the plants he finds are not as clean, nor nowhere near as
abundant.
Spirit guides the life and work of Norm DeLorme. Here is the place where spirit
lives, a place where the grandmothers occasionally visit to oversee what he and his
daughter Celia have created. While we have been talking, Norm has lined up some small
beaded baskets on the table. Smiling, he notices a spider crawling from under the wooden
table to the top. “Watch her,” he says, “see, it is one of the grandmothers coming to see
Celia’s work.” Sure enough, the spider crawled slowly toward Celia’s newly finished
basket, circled it, and then headed back in the same direction under the table. “I think the
grandmothers are happy with what they see.”xxvii
<fig. 89>
Others have been happy with their work as well. Over the past few years the
director of the Nevada State Museum has commissioned both father and daughter to
create beaded baskets for the state collection.
And so the tradition continues.
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Celia DeLorme (1981- ) The Grandmothers should be very happy with what they see now. Celia has
continued to perfect her beaded baskets in the ten years since. We chat long distance one
Sunday evening.xxviii
With both her parents beaded basket makers, it is not hard to imagine where she
learned. But when I ask her when she first got “interested” in beading, she immediately
responds “Fay.” Her older sister “was always interested in the beading part, but not the
willow part of it.” Celia continues, “I remember seeing my parents always working on
baskets. They started me when I was five with really big beads. Dad would draw on
fabric, and I would go over it with beads. I made earrings and key chains first—
necklaces, bracelets, easier stuff. I made my first basket, wove and beaded it, when I was
ten. I sold it to Neal at Wade’s Silver Shop in Reno.xxix
<fig. 90>
Celia goes on to say her interest “slowed down” when she was about fifteen,
attributing it to more teenage concerns. Then when she was eighteen or nineteen, she
went back. “I just started missing it.” She found herself staying at home more, as she puts
it, “calming down,” and returned to her basket making.
I ask her about her involvement in the whole process—whether or not she gathers
her own willow for her baskets. She replies, “I have gathered my own willow, but since
my Dad really enjoys gathering, he always has willow for me to use. He has always
helped me out in that way.”xxx
Celia continues to echo the same lament we heard earlier when she notes, “It is
getting really hard to find good willow. The places Dad went when he was younger are
all gone; there are only a few places left. We have to travel as far as California to find
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good willow, the kind that doesn’t break because it is so brittle. It’s one thing to find
willow, another to find good willow. Some that we find along the road has been sprayed
for bugs. When we put the willow in our mouths to split, the spray residue makes us
sick.”xxxi
Changing the topic, I ask Celia about her bead work designs, frequently
whimsical animal and insect motifs. “Originally, I didn’t mean for them to be all animal
and insects; I started with a pattern for the dragon fly; then I went to the lady bug. Now
that’s all I do.”xxxii
xxxiii
But as far as inspiration goes, she responds, “Inspiration comes in
different forms—from a dream, a mood, or just something I see. Or Ava—she’s telling
me to make a bear.” Color choice depends on her mood and the pattern, but she turns
to black or white beads for background. As far as basket size goes, Celia actually prefers
working on larger basket due to the difficulty in placing her patterns on miniature-sized
ones. And she takes advantage of design assistance now available, using her computer to
graph and then print design patterns.
With often working more than forty hours a week at her job and caring for her
daughter Ava, almost four, it is difficult for her to find time to work on her baskets. She
says when she was young, her favorite place to work on her baskets was outside, in her
backyard. Now her place for working accommodates her priorities. “I now sit on the sofa,
often with the television going, and Ava right beside me.”xxxiv The only time she has are
evenings (but as she says, “it’s hard to work in the dark”) and weekends. If she has an
order, though, she will push through and work “nonstop until it is finished.”xxxv Now with
her time so limited, Celia sells outright to collectors and museums (Nevada State
Museum) who commission her work.
75
In closing our conversation, Celia emphasizes the importance of passing on the
tradition. “These traditions have been passed down through my family for generations. I
plan to keep it alive as well. I will teach not only Ava, but my nieces and nephews as
well. Anyone who wants to learn. My oldest niece started to get into beadwork—she‘s
fifteen. Becky’s [her cousin Becky Eagle whose story follows] oldest daughter does
beadwork that looks like hers.”xxxvi
<fig. 91>
But it is not only the tradition of beadwork that Celia plans to keep alive, it’s the
stories. She says, “Staying with my Dad, I hear the stories and start to remember the
traditions he taught us when we were young. I listen to him and my Grandma talk and
talk about the time before the reservation. It’s neat to hear what they have to say.”xxxvii
So the tradition continues. And like the beaded baskets, Celia will pass on the
stories to anyone who will listen.
Rebecca Eagle (1964- ) Along a dusty dirt road outside the small town of Wadsworth, Nevada, we find
Norm’s cousin Becky Eagle. Her beaded baskets reflect the magic of the moment—
“whatever comes to you at that time goes into that piece. Where you are, what you are
thinking of at that moment—your mood, level of spirit can dictate the colors you use,”
says Becky. Also, she continues, her “symbols smile to her.”xxxviii
xxxix
Following in the
tradition of her ancestors she explains, “If something related to them in their own
surroundings, they would put it into their work.” Thus we find in Becky’s work
symbols of her own culture as well—that includes a “super bowl” basket. “The borders of
76
this basket are wheel like—Indian design—cobalt blue and pink like the older beaded
bottles.”xl
Despite the fact that beading baskets is not Becky’s full-time work, she manages
to turn out about a hundred small ones (1” to 3”) a year and has created well over a
thousand baskets in her lifetime.
<fig. 92>
She remembers the first basket she created in the late 1970s. At that time she was
a twelve-year old living with her cousin Norm. It was Norm who taught her how to bead.
During her beginning stages, Becky looked at many other baskets for inspiration and
learning, including those of her cousins Norm and Bernie DeLorme, their great Aunt
Celia Arnot, and their grandmother Adele Sampson. She also learned patterns and style
from looking at the older pieces seen in books. Other times she simply might say,
“Maybe today I make a snake basket.” The snake design was typical of both Washoe and
Paiute patterns since the snake was a natural part of their surroundings.
After 1982 she began to infuse more varied colors into her patterns, and her colors
became less “traditional” and more “contemporary,” but her patterns remained
traditional. She mixed pastel colors as well as using the rainbow and fire colors of
orange, red, and yellow. Now she says what colors she uses does not really matter to her.
From the 1990s on, Becky can look at a picture and just put it on a basket.
Sometimes she does not even need a picture. One has only to view the large “Lake
Tahoe” basket she beaded. This magnificent basket was commissioned by a private
collector who asked her to design and bead a large basket that reflected the beauty of
Lake Tahoe. It took her almost six hundred hours working with large beads, beading two
77
beads at a time. Through a kaleidoscope of colors depicting the wildlife, trees, plants,
birds, sky, and water, this majestic basket tells the ageless story of a magical place.
Becky continues to learn about her people. As she says, “You have to tell a story
in order to appreciate the art.”xli
Watching Julia, Clara, Bernie, Norm, and Becky turn page after page of photos of
beaded baskets, I heard more and more stories—some unspoken. I saw the gleam in
recognizing an aunt or grandmother’s beaded basket or in discovering a forgotten basket
of their own work among the hundreds of photos. I was honored by the time they spent
with me—sharing ways I could recognize the work of a particular tribe or family or
individual. I felt honored as they generously and graciously answered my questions and
shared life stories with me. I thanked them for offering me part of this connectedness.
And then each thanked me for sharing this part of their history with them.
I have learned so much more than the mere identification of some beaded baskets.
I learned the sacredness of the artistry, the traditions, and places they represent, and
sacredness and spirituality of the lives they speak.
i The story of Julia Parker first appeared as “And the Tradition Continues: Julia Parker and the Baskets of Yosemite,” by Carlon Andre and Carole McAllister, in Proteus 16 (1), Spring 1999, 32-34. The combined stories of Julia Parker, Bernie DeLorme and Norm DeLorme first appeared as “The Stories Baskets Tell,” by Carole McAllister, in Interdisciplinary Humanities 22.2, 2005, 90-99. ii As of October 5, 2009, Ms Parker still holds her position. iii “Julia Parker Fact Sheet,” Yosemite Assocation, nd, 1. iv Julia Parker, personal interview by Carlon Andre and Carole McAllister, August 1997. v “Julia Parker Fact Sheet,” 2. vi Ibid. vii Julia Parker, personal interview, August 1997. viii Ibid. ix Several of Francis Willie Sam’s baskets appear in the Bernheimer collection. See Baskets 17, 18, 36, 68, 135, 179, 200, and 205. x Mary Josephus Willie’s baskets also appear in the Bernheimer collection. See Baskets 152, 184, 206, and 218. xi Bernie DeLorme, personal interview by Carole McAllister, August 1997. xii Ibid.
78
xiii Ibid. xiv Bernie DeLorme, personal interview by Carole McAllister, 1998. xv Ibid. xvi Ibid. xvii Ibid. xviii Bernie DeLorme, personal interview by Carole McAllister, May 1999. xix Bernie DeLorme, personal interview, 1998. xx Ibid. xxi Ibid. xxii Bernie DeLorme, personal interview, May 1999. xxiii Norm DeLorme, personal interview by Carole McAllister, May 1998. xxiv Ibid. xxv Ibid. xxvi Ibid. xxvii Ibid. xxviii Celia DeLorme, personal interview by Carole McAllister, August 2009. xxix Wade’s Silver Shop has provided a market for beaded basket makers for several decades. xxx Celia DeLorme, personal interview, August 2009. xxxi Ibid. xxxii Ibid. xxxiii Ibid. xxxiv Ibid. xxxv Ibid. xxxvi Ibid. xxxvii Ibid. xxxviii Becky Eagle, personal interview by Carlon Andre, August 1997. xxxix Ibid. xl Ibid. xli Becky Eagle, personal interview by Carlon Andre, July 1998.
79
Conclusion The origin of the beaded basket parallels the evolution of America itself. The
story of beaded baskets shows an art form that honors the traditional, while encouraging
and incorporating fluidity. It is a story influenced by society and economics. It is a story
of the merging and blending of different peoples, their origins, and their traditions. Thus,
a collection of Paiute and Washoe beaded baskets can tell us the story of these people as
well as the stories of culture, tradition, and spirit that represent the lives of the artists past
and present.
Both the baskets and the beading can reveal inter-tribal, Asian, and Euro-
American influences and ask us to find out how. By studying these baskets, we can learn
how and where these people traded and with whom; we can see the results of relocation
to prison camps in distant lands through conflicts with the cavalry; and we can then
understand what they brought back and incorporated into their culture.
On the other hand, the basket and its beadwork can also tell the story of a family
of basket makers and bead workers, designs passed from one generation to another. The
story of a basket collection can tell us the stories of these artists—their spirituality and
their connectedness. Thus the story of a basket collection that details the evolution of an
art form is a story of a people: their traditions, their culture, and their connectedness.
80
Bibliography Adovasio, J.M. “Prehistoric Basketry.” Handbook of the North American Indians: The
Great Basin, Vol. II. Edited by Warren L. d’Azevedo. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution, 1986.
Andre, Carlon and Carole McAllister. “And the Tradition Continues: Julia Parker and the
Baskets of Yosemite.” Proteus. 16.1 (1999): 32-34.
Bates, C.D. and M.J. Lee. Tradition and Innovation: A Basket History of the Indians of
the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association,
1990.
Baugh, T.G. and J.E. Ericson. “Systematics of the Study of Prehistoric Regional
Exchange in North America.” Chap. 1 in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North
America. Ed. Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson. New York: Plenum
Press, 1994.
Bennyhoff, J.A. and R.E. Hughes. “Early Trade.” Handbook of the North American
Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II. Edited by Warren L. d’Azevedo. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution, 1986.
Cain, Ella M. The Story of Early Mono County: Its Settlers, Gold Rushes, Indians, Ghost
Towns. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1961.
Clark, Galen. Indians of Yosemite Valley and Vicinity: Their History, Customs and
Traditions. Yosemite Valley, CA: Galen Clark, 1904.
Dawson, L.E. and C.S. Fowler. “Ethnographic Basketry.” Handbook of the North
American Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II. Edited by Warren L. d’Azevedo.
Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1986.
81
Ericson, J.E. and Thomas L. Jackson. “Prehistoric Exchange Systems in California.”
Chap. 13 in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America. Ed. Timothy G.
Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson. New York: Plenum Press, 1994.
Erikson, Joan Mowat. The Universal Bead. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969.
Fowler, C.S. and S. Liljeblad. “Northern Paiutes.” Handbook of the North American
Indians: The Great Basin, Vol. II. Edited by Warren L. d’Azevedo. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution, 1986.
Fulkerson, Mary Lee. Weavers of Tradition and Beauty: Basketmakers of the Great
Basin. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1995.
Harner, Nellie Shaw. The History of the Pyramid Lake Indians, 1843-1959, and Early
Tribal History, 1825-1834. Sparks, NV: Dave’s Printing and Publishing, 1974.
Hopkins, S.W. Life Among the Piutes. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1994.
Hughes, Richard E. “Mosaic Patterning in Prehistoric California—Great Basin
Exchange.” Chap. 12 in Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America. Ed.
Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson. New York: Plenum Press, 1994.
“Julia Parker Fact Sheet.” Yosemite Association, nd.
Knack, M.C. and O.C. Stewart. As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of
Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
McAllister, Carole. “The Stories Baskets Tell.” Interdisciplinary Humanities. 22.2
(2005): 90-99.
Merriam, C.H. Studies of California Indians. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1955.
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Orchard, William C. Beads and Beadwork of the American Indians. 2nd ed. New York:
Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, 1975.
Steward, J.H. and E. Wheeler-Voegelin. “The Northern Paiute Indians.” Paiute Indians,
Vol. III. New York: Garland Publishing, 1974.
1
Captions Chapter 1—Place Fig. 1. Mono Lake. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 2. Valley View. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 3. Pyramid Lake. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 4. Tuolumne Meadows. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Chapter 2—Basketry Fig. 5. Early beaded basket artist, Lucy Telles. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National
Park.
Fig. 6. Basket 40 in the Bernheimer collection, this trade basket, attributed to Mary
Wilson, is an example of the coiled weaving technique.
Fig. 7. Julia and Lucy Parker gathering willows. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National
Park.
Fig. 8. Julia Parker stripping redbud. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 9. Basket 8 in the Bernheimer collection, Norm DeLorme’s use of bracken fern in
this more modern basket indicates how the same techniques have been passed
down through the generations.
Chapter 3—Influence of Contact Fig. 10. Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park. Photo courtesy of Yosemite
National Park.
Fig. 11. An example of a Mono Lake Paiute beaded collar. Collected by E.W. Billeb,
1910. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 12. Beaded slippers in museum in Bodie, California. Photo courtesy of authors.
2
Fig. 13. Basket maker displaying her work. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 14. Basket makers Tina Charlie, Carrie Bethel and Lucy Telles displaying their
baskets for Gov. Friend Richardson in 1926. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National
Park.
Chapter 4—The Bernheimer Collection Fig. 15. June Lake Field Days. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 16. Beaded Bottle 8 in the Bernheimer Collection is an example of an early beaded
bottle from the Mono Lake area.
Fig. 17. Basket 105
Fig. 18. Basket 106
Fig. 19. Lucy Telles, 1945. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 20. Lucy Telles at Indian Field Days, 1924. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National
Park.
Fig. 21. Basket 52
Fig. 22. Basket 7
Fig. 23. Basket 27
Fig. 24. Basket 39
Fig. 25. Indian Field Days. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 26. Basket 19
Fig. 27. Basket 123
Fig. 28. Basket 110
Fig. 29. Basket 13
Fig. 30. Basket 163
3
Fig. 31. Basket 5
Fig. 32. Basket 96
Fig. 33. Basket 60
Fig. 34. Basket 98
Fig. 35. Basket 10
Fig. 36. Basket 46
Fig. 37. Basket 167
Fig. 38. Basket 66
Fig. 39. Basket 232
Fig. 40. Basket 120
Fig. 41. Basket 23
Fig. 42. Basket 24
Fig. 43. Basket 80
Fig. 44. Carrie Bethel and Minnie Mike. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 45. Basket 1
Fig. 46. Basket 64
Fig. 47. Basket 130
Fig. 48. Basket 177
Fig. 49. Basket 21
Fig. 50. Basket 29
Fig. 51. Basket 44
Fig. 52. Basket 138
Fig. 53. Basket 35
4
Fig. 54. Basket 75
Fig. 55. Basket 212
Fig. 56. Basket 225
Fig. 57. Basket 152
Fig. 58. Basket 36
Fig. 59. Clara Castillo at her home, 1999. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 60. Basket 124
Fig. 61. Basket 14
Fig. 62. Basket 78
Fig. 63. Basket 83
Fig. 64. Basket 140
Fig. 65. Basket 34
Fig. 66. Basket 191
Fig. 67. Basket 224
Fig. 68. Basket 74
Fig. 69. Basket 38
Fig. 70. Basket 178
Fig. 71. Basket 222
Fig. 72. Basket 231
Fig. 73. Basket 8
Fig. 74. Basket 206
Fig. 75. Basket 139
Fig. 76. Basket 268
5
Fig. 77. Basket 264
Fig. 78. Basket 267
Fig. 79. Basket 301
Fig. 80. Basket 253
Fig. 81. Basket 261
Chapter 5—Conversations Fig. 82. Julia Parker. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 83. Julia Parker weaving basket, 1975. Photo courtesy of Yosemite National Park.
Fig. 84. Clara Castillo in her home, 2005. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 85. Bernie DeLorme showcasing her artistry, 1999. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 86. Various baskets made by Bernie DeLorme. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 87. Norm DeLorme holding one of his own baskets, 1998. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 88. Norm and his daughter, Celia DeLorme; notice the Hilton behind them. Photo
courtesy of authors.
Fig. 89. Basket 76, created by Norm DeLorme
Fig. 90. Celia DeLorme posing with her work, 1998. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 91. Norm and Celia DeLorme. Photo courtesy of authors.
Fig. 92. Becky Eagle holding one of her mini baskets. Photo courtesy of authors.
