An Interview with a Traditional Basket-maker
The following free-ranging interview is with traditional Abenaki basket-maker Jesse Larocque, and was conducted in the spring of 2001.
JL: Please understand that I will be speaking for myself. Other Abenakis may have a different opinion about these matters.
I like the word "livelihood." I like the word "trade." I don't like "crafts." "Crafts" makes it sound like we are talking about pretty decorations from Ben Franklin's. I want to make useful things. Things that are used daily versus items that are only to look at. Traditional Native trades include basket-making, metal work, canoe-making (birch bark canoes unlike aluminum ones will flex over rocks), axe handles, birch bark containers (with porcupine quills), picture frames and furniture (we use bark to add decoration, and pegged them together with bones rather than nails), moose calls (of birch sewn with spruce and shaped in a funnel), bows and arrows (by the way, each arrow takes a day to make. Bowstrings are made of the inside bark of the basswood tree and of deer tendon. Children get their first bow at the age of four or five and are given one arrow with a blunt tip. That way, they only shock birds and squirrels rather than kill them) and so forth.
Q: What kinds of baskets were traditionally made?
JL: Many different kinds. Fishing baskets, for example. Cooking baskets were traditionally important. They were made of birch and you could boil water in them over an open flame. Also, ornamental or fancy baskets with lids. They were made of black ash and woven with sweetgrass. Winter bark was used for ornamental baskets; it has an orange color when pulled off the tree and is easily etched for a nice relief effect.
Q: Were there people whose special job it was to make baskets?
JL: Traditionally, you didn't hire someone to make baskets for you. You did it yourself. It wasn't about making money. It was about taking the time to do it as well as possible, of upholding a tradition of doing something beautiful and useful. Traditional Abenaki lived a subsistence lifestyle. They were driven by need, not greed.
Q: Is that why you don't maintain much of an inventory?
JL: I don't like to build up an inventory. I prefer to make baskets for people I know. I think about the person who is getting it, about why they want to have the basket, and shape it to that. Some traditionals won't sell their baskets because they don't know who is getting it. They will give them away or trade for them instead. If I make a basket for someone I don't know, I try to make an especially good one so that when they pick it up and look at it, they will know it is worth cherishing.
Q: What makes your baskets different from others'?
There's a specific way I do each of my baskets that's different from everyone else. The pack baskets, for instance, are woven to fit the curve of the wearer's back. They have a bulged belly that sweeps up to an oval rim, with a handle that's woven into the basket for taking it in and out of a canoe. This is the old way of making a pack basket, the old-style basket.
Q: Making baskets one at a time for people you know is not the standard way of doing business these days.
JL: The Native approach doesn't lend itself to impulse buying. When you are buying something that means something, you should think about it. You treat it better if you think about it first.
Q: Do Abenakis still practice subsistence living?
JL: Sure. There are seasonal occupations like fishing for perch and picking fiddleheads and blueberries, or working in potato and tobacco fields. Some people move through the year first picking blueberries, then tobacco, then going on to trap and log in winter. This pattern extends back 100 years, and it reflects the traditional nomadic lifestyle of earlier Abenakis.
There is a very strong tradition of living and working in the woods and of knowing the woods. Doing guide work has been a mainstay for Indian men. Tools may change, but what doesn't change is doing the work of being in the woods. Most Indians have two houses. One is a house, but we aren't happy staying in a house for any length of time. So in the summer we move to the woods, to a camp or a tent or whatever. In the summer place, we pick fiddleheads for cooking and may bag and sell some to local restaurants. We may make and sell rustic furniture to resorts or along roads.
Then there are the Bird's Eye people. Eight to ten men hunt in the woods for one tree, maybe a bird's eye maple or a tiger maple, cut it, carry it out, sell it and divide the money. A good tree can keep families alive for a time. Most loggers would need a skidder and then it becomes complicated and expensive. For a basket maker, one good basket tree can feed a family for quite a while.
For Natives, subsistence living means being in charge of the food chain, instead of being on top of the food chain.
Q: How do Abenakis teach trade skills to children?
JL: Older people pass things along to younger. In my case, I wanted to learn basket making. I asked some older men and got very vague advice. I took it and went off and made mistakes. When I brought back my efforts, the older men took me a little more seriously and taught me more.
The Native approach is to learn by doing. We don't read about it, which seems like a kind of living vicariously. We believe you can't pass along an experience you've never had. Sometimes I show children the wrong way, then the right way. Give some guidance, but each child has to discover the way for him- or herself.
Q: Thank you.
This website was funded through a Rural Business Enterprise Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.