Re-Awakening a 2,000 Year Old Salish Sea Basketry Tradition: Master Salish Basketmaker and Wet Site Archaeologist Explore 100 Generations of Cultural Knowledge

Summary

I often invited Ed Carriere, Suquamish Master Basketmaker and Elder, to help us recover 700 year old cedar bough pack baskets while excavating the Qwu?gwes wet/waterlogged site, Olympia, Washington. He is the last known Salish Sea weaver still making these cedar clam baskets. While preparing to analyze 2,000 year old Biderbost wet site pack baskets at the U.W. Burke Museum in Seattle, I called Ed and suggested he try to replicate these baskets, fully 100 generations back through his line of teachers. He loved the idea and we got expense funds to do the project through his Tribe’s Suquamish Appendix X grants. We met several times at the U.W. Burke and he recognized two main types of large pack baskets, one open twined and one checker plaited. Kathleen Hawes, a cellular ID expert, determined most of these ancient baskets were made from split cedar root. Ed has now replicated three of the fine gauge open twine pack baskets, contributing a huge amount to our analysis in the process. Ed guided me through the process of making two of the checker weave examples. Together we will present what we have learned through this experimental archaeology and cultural experiment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Excavating the Museum: New Research on Old Collections

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Spatial Coverage