Editor’s note: This article is part of a special edition of this year Craft Archive Scholarship Cohortorganized in conjunction with the Center for Craft to support new work by emerging and established scholars in the field, with a focus on underrepresented and non-mainstream stories.
ᏕᏣᏓᏟᏴᏎᏍᏗ – struggling to hold on or cling to each other – is a Cherokee value originally shared by Cherokee elder Benny Smith. As a framework for understanding Cherokee craft pedagogies, ᏕᏣᏓᏟᏴᏎᏍᏗ is part of a system of knowing that emphasizes caring and relatedness in all that we do. Weaving is a material articulation of this system – a basket carries heavier loads when its individual fibers are tightly interwoven. As a result of the Indian Removal Act, three federally recognized Cherokee tribes formed in today’s Cherokee Nation (CN), the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB). Each tribe is linked. The histories, ancestors, craft traditions and ways of being exemplify our shared willingness to learn, adapt and encourage one another in the face of failed colonial efforts to undermine Cherokee self-determination; in other words, a common will to fight together.
The educational models of Cherokee craftsmanship, which contribute to the transmission of our cultural heritage, must be understood historically as linked to the battle for sovereignty. The teaching of traditional trades has always been, and always will be, a political act, at the heart of solidarity work. Cherokee artists have never stopped practicing traditional crafts such as basket weaving, twisting, finger weaving and loom weaving. But violent postcolonial assimilation policies have harmed the Cherokee people, sometimes limiting artists’ ability to learn traditional ways of making. ᏕᏣᏓᏟᏴᏎᏍᏗ recognizes that hanging on to each other is sometimes a struggle; clinging on can be both an embrace and a hold on something beyond its reach.
Prior to colonization efforts, almost all Cherokee women would have learned to weave by observing older generations. For some artists, weaving continues to be intertwined with social and domestic life, something a future weaver might acquire from a relative or friend. Influential basket weaver Emma Taylor (EBCI) described learning as a child saying that “my mother, she didn’t really teach me how to basket; I learned to make a basket just by seeing. Artist Pat Welch (EBCI) told me she grew up watching her own mother making baskets, but only became interested in learning after she got married. Welch’s mother-in-law, Agnes Welch (EBCI), provided equipment she could practice with, encouraging Pat to learn through observation and experimentation. Agnes Welch learned from Lottie Queen Stamper (EBCI), a famous artist who taught basket weaving at Cherokee boarding schools for decades. Stamper learned from his own mother, Mary Queen (EBCI), when he was 15; in a 1976 interview, Stamper also credited her stepmother, Sally Anne Crowe Stamper (EBCI), as one of her teachers. This intertwined line of makers illustrates how observation and the act of coming together maintain weaving traditions, as Taylor put it, “just by seeing.”
In the absence of a master, the weavers also learn by seeing. Karen Berry (CN) learned an 18th century Cherokee slant-finger weaving style in part by studying historical weavings. She and other finger weavers have been credited with “reviving” this style in the Cherokee Nation in recent decades. Of the process of finding items held in institutional archives, Berry, whose mother, pearler Martha Berry (CN), learned her trade through a similar process, told me, “You hear that word” rebirth” – my mother basically single-handedly revived beading in the Cherokee Nation… at the time, people were saying that the Cherokees traditionally didn’t do beading. It took him a lot of research at the Smithsonian and elsewhere to get people to understand that, yes, we did beadwork and this is what it looks like. … I had the same opportunity to see all the finger weavings the British Museum has in its archives. They have a ton of our stuff…but it was really neat to watch because I got to see these old pieces up close, and I could see they were oblique style, the same style as me. She added: “It was a little overwhelming, but you can totally see the difference [that makes the weaving style distinctly Cherokee]and this turns artists into researchers.
Crafts like baskets and woven belts are teachers in their own right; they are inscribed with the knowledge, parents, care and patience of their creator. When we see them, they reveal the continuity of our traditions across time and space. Artist Candessa Tehee (CN) defined these encounters as “a connection with past generations, with ancestors we have never met”. Tehee, whose grandfather, Rogers McLemore, was a famous loom weaver, started teaching herself to finger weave so she could pass on a woven belt to her daughters. Of the opportunity to see older weavings at the Chickasaw Cultural Center, she said, “I think art is a connection, a connection with and between people, between us here and now…and a connection with the past as well. [At the cultural center]they weren’t quite sure of the timeframe [of the works on display]but they were very fine examples of finger weaving… [these artists] had beads in the finger weave that made straight lines, like 90 degree angles. I had seen pictures of this piece, but seeing it in person was so much better. And I’ve spent so much time standing in this room looking at the parts… wishing I could touch them, look at them closer, wishing I had more light and stronger glasses… the technique I use is pretty much the same as the one I was watching. And the only thing that separates me from this finger weaver is time.
Cherokee artists have also organized themselves formally and informally over time to collaboratively produce and transmit their knowledge. Artist Lisa Rutherford (CN) has highlighted how important it is for her to be in community with other artists, both at the Cherokee Arts Center and at the dinner table of one of her mentors, l artist Bill Glass (CN): “I’m often at the arts center when classes are on… The senior teachers almost always bring food, usually simple, and most of the students participate and bring something. …Some of my best experiences have been around this table with the Glass family and other artists…. There’s a lot of talk about art, but it’s life lessons, living our culture, our history, stories about tribal government over the years from when our government was rebuilding and regaining sovereignty.
Older artists and more experienced artists provide guidance to emerging artisans that goes beyond teaching technique – they foster a support structure that reinforces the continuity of tribal identity and kinship. Skye Tafoya (EBCI/Laguna Pueblo) described a conversation she had with educator and basket maker Louise Goings (EBCI) about developing new designs for her flat paper weaves, which draw heavily on basket weaving: “I hope the artists will create their own designs and create new family models that understand and show how we are moving through life right now in this contemporary stage. I was talking with Louise about that…kind of saying all my spiel on the development of new models [laughter]and she said, ‘you have to remember that these drawings are For We. These are tribal designs. Never be afraid to use them, they are for you. They are for all of us, that is why we continue to use them, they are for all of us.
In the 1940s, two artist-run organizations emerged, both recognizing the need for a community to centralize manufacturing, teaching, and sales. Comprised of artists who had taken weaving lessons at the Sequoyah Indian School, the Sequoyah Indian Weavers Association (SIWA) formed in 1940, creating an infrastructure through weaving halls, in which prospective students learned the weaving and spinning. They opened these communal centers in Briggs, Jay, Peavine and Tahlequah, Oklahoma; the artists also exhibited and sold their work nationally. For Dorothy Ice (UKB), who joined SIWA at 15, “weaving with the association is how we made money… we weaved all day”. Ice celebrated its 16th anniversary in one of the weaving rooms, a celebration that reflects the strong sense of kinship among SIWA members. The Cherokee Indian Craft Co-op, now known as Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc. (QACM), was founded in 1946 by artists, tribal leaders and educators, including Stamper. Like SIWA, QACM was founded to promote craft education and economic self-sufficiency. As a cooperative, QACM artists share benefits among themselves and teach community classes, reciprocal strategies that recall both maintenance and attachment: all artists offer support, education and advice when they can, and receive support when they need it. . In every conversation I conducted during my research, I asked artists and educators why they thought it was important to pass on traditional craft techniques. When I met Pat Welch, we talked at a big table at the back of the co-op, where she sometimes teaches. She answered this question very simply: “Because that’s who we are.”
