Oklahoma Native American Basketweavers

Burl Ford                           Cherokee Nation

Farm Memories

Burl Ford is a member of  the Cherokee Nation. His father's mother was part Cherokee.  Her maiden name was Walkingstick.  The Walkingsticks were part of the old settler group of Cherokees who came west before the trail of tears.  They were a prominent family in early Adair County, Oklahoma.  One of them was a sheriff of the Goingsnake District when the Zeke Proctor trial was being held at the Old Whitmire schoolhouse near Christi where Burl lives today.  The family thinks the sheriff was one of about nine wounded in the shootout between the Becks and the Proctors the day of the trial.

Burl visited Cherokee, N. C. a few years ago and was "surprised to see some of the basketweavers there were Walkingsticks."  Burl writes "I grew up on a farm south of Stilwell, Oklahoma, in a community called Greasy. About 90% of  the population of that area was Cherokee.  I come from a family of nine, five boys and four girls."  Burl attended grade school at Greasy and high school at Cave Springs.  Burl said that he was always fascinated by nature.  He loved all of the different sights and sounds of the outdoors.  Northeast Oklahoma, where he grew up, is heavily forrested with a large variety of wildlife.  Since his family farmed for a living,  he gained many skills still useful today.  He wrote "my parents farmed for a living and raised crops such as strawberries and beans.  We also had some cattle and hogs.  I can remember the days of open range when everyone ran their hogs and cattle at large.  Living close to the land, we learned a lot of things that people who lived in cities didn't know. My dad use to butcher his own hogs and then salt the meat and make sausage himself." 

Career and Family

He attended NSU, majoring in elementary education with an industrial arts minor.  He now teaches 4th grade in Westville, Oklahoma, after starting his career in 1972 in Westville.  He also taught in Christie school.  Christie school was started by a Cherokee family.  Burl lives west of Westville, OK, in the Chance community.  Married to Rhonda for 33 years, they have two grown children.  He writes "We got our first grandchild in November 2006.  Talk about a great experience."

Beginning Basketweaving

This editor met Burl at the Cherokee Heritage Center at Park Hill, OK, several years ago. I speak often of my meeting that day with Burl and Betty Frogg and other Cherokee basketweavers.  How Burl came to be an accomplished basketweaver and leader in basketry renewal in the Cherokee communities is an important story to ONABA, and I think, to the Cherokee Nation.  It was a glorious summer day in Oklahoma with a typical breeze to cool us from the summer heat.  Several ONABA members traveled to the Cherokee Heritage Center from areas around the state with one member traveling from Wichita, KS.  We wanted to meet Burl and the other Native basketweavers who had learned twill basket weaving and teaching this technique to others. 

Continuing Woodworking Traditions

His father also taught him self sufficiency in repairing items.  He said that his folks taught them to work at an early age and to appreciate what we had.  "I've always enjoyed working with my hands.  I've done a lot of woodworking and some decorative painting.  Burl's first introduction to working with wood was at a young age when his dad would cut hickory bark and re-do the bottoms of their chairs.  Burl plans to learn more about selecting trees and splitting the wood for baskets, particularly white oak baskets.  ONABA looks forward to Burl retiring soon and helping members learn to identify trees and to split the wood as our ancestors from the SE did when they were relocated to Oklahoma.  Many baskets in collections and museums were made by Oklahoma Natives from woods of hickory, oak and willow. 

River Cane Splitting

For ONABA, another skill Burl can offer is to continue teaching twill basketry; creating new designs and improving his skills and our members' skills in rivercane selection, harvesting, processing and weaving.  That fine summer day some of us traveled to meet with Burl was the first time many hiked across a field near the Illinois river to enter a large rivercane grove.  After we cut the cane and brought it back to the Heritage Center, Burl showed us how he split the cane.  That day instilled in several of us the passion to make rivercane baskets.  Burl has transplanted rivercane on his own land for future use. 

Teaching Twill Basketry

Other contributions Burl has made in his communities has been working with 4-H students teaching woodworking skills.  This editor's beginnings with rivercane begin about the same time Burl began weaving twill basket designs.  I spent time with Roger Cain learning about rivercane when Shawna Cain began weaving twill designs.  Burl wrote "around 1993, as school near where I live, Skelly, got an after school grant to do basketweaving.  I had seen Cherokee baskets a lot and always wanted to learn to make them so I started the classes.  We had classes for four or five years.  After I learned I started helping in the class  My teachers were Shawna Cain, Betty Frogg and Pauline Hampton to do double weave and twill pattern weaving.  In class we used a lot of commercial dye, but we learned about natural dyes also."

Basketweaving Today

Look at Burl's beautiful baskets at his website burlford.tripod.com.  His baskets are for sale.  He gathers natural materials such as pine needles, buckbrush, honeysuckle, and river cane to weave baskets.  He uses natural dyes including walnut hulls, sumac heads, leaves, roots and berries from his area. 

Look for Burl at the Cherokee Holiday during the Labor Day weekend with well known weavers and basketweaving teachers, Betty Frogg and her sister, Barbara Keen.  He is available for teaching weaving classes.  You can also find him each year at the Kerr-Overstreet Historical farm near Sallisaw where he demonstrates weaving a nd sells his baskets.

Quoting Burl, "I find it fascinating to see all of the different types of baskets made by different native American groups and would like to know more about them.  To me baskets carry a lot of history."

Entered by Peggy Brennan, April 12, 2007

Edited April 24, 2008