Oklahoma Native American Basketweavers Association

Annette Morgan           

Cherokee Heritage

Annette's Basket                                             Photos

I'm a 65 year old woman of Cherokee heritage, not enrolled, and getting here to this place of learning to weave traditional baskets has been a long journey.  Annette Morgan

I believe this group will help me and others like me to learn this skill and teach us the history of these baskets and the women who made them.  I would also be very pleased to someday teach my granddaughters and my sister this skill if they wish to learn it. 

Sing Me A Basket

Little basket, I sing I sing,

Little basket be strong

Like my warrior's hands.

I sing like grandmother,

Her face turned into the sun.

She sings little basket come alive

With the river tumbling by her side

She weaves the strands little basket,

And sings for a good catch.

She sings for a good crop,

She sings for a baby

To fill her belly and her basket.

She sings for plenty

She sings for love,

Little basket, I sing I sing,

Be strong and forever full

©L.A. Morgan 2005

Her Story:

Part of this long journey to the basket weavers was to finally, after 50 long years, meet the sister I had never met and had never known. During our first time together she taught me how to make pine needle baskets.

My sister carries the body and the spirit of a spider in her medicine bag. She tells me the story of her spider as we sit at my kitchen table making pine needle baskets. Some of the pine needles we collected are soaking in warm water and some are finished soaking and ready to use. She is teaching me how to make these baskets and our fingers are flying, weaving threads and coiling pine needles as we talk and laugh. We are also weaving our hearts and our spirits because this is the first time we have ever met even though she is 52 years old, and I am 64. It is April of 2005. Her baskets are beautiful, like she is. Their openings are a perfect circle and their patterns are symmetric. My baskets are lopsided every time, imperfect like I am. She and I have the same birthfather (who I did not know) and different mothers. She confirms for me our Cherokee heritage through our father.

My sister and I are a complete sacred circle this day and we are perfect

My sister Kay taught me to make pine needle coil baskets and I have recently taught two of my granddaughters ages 8 and 14 to make the pine needle coil baskets. Mavis Doering taught Linda Sue Alexander who taught Kay Cope and Terry Ristivio who taught Charlotte Coats who is teaching me Cherokee double woven and Oklahoma Cherokee wicker double wall.   Using a SE Indian basket pattern created by Jackie Carlson, for the Oklahoma Native American Basket Weavers Association, I'm learning to weave a basic twill using flat reed.

The question has been asked:

"If Indian baskets are made of non traditional and/or commercial materials do you think they maintain their cultural significance?"

Yes, I believe they do. According to what I have learned so far, Cherokee basket weavers have had to adapt to many changes over the years, including environment and changes in their location. The original basket weavers used whatever natural materials were available and those which made a good strong basket. As the lifestyle and location of the basket weaver changed, then so did the materials used. I believe what has remained constant through all those changes is the baskets' significance in tradition, spirituality, and design regardless of what kinds of materials were used to weave them.

A chance contact with an ONAB member brought me into the group and provided me with a way to learn one of the skills of my ancestors.  I look forward to making many baskets.

BASKET TECHNIQUES USED:

Wicker Plaited

Plaited Twill

Coiled pine needle

MATERIALS IN WEAVING:

Palm Rattan

Pine Needles

Hamburg Cane

Cane

DESIGNS IN WEAVING:

Cherokee

Editor Note:

Annette's Other Art:

In Annette's published work, she signs her work with her name Laurel Annette.   She is a gifted writer.  She writes under the name Red Shirt. 

Following is a story of her grandson called "Grandson’s Flute and the Ancestral Memory" which she believes is a good example of blood memory/clan memory/ancestral memoryGrandson’s Flute and the Ancestral Memory

Grandson’s Flute and the Ancestral Memory

"Well, I have run out of words Grandma" and so saying that, my grandson hung up the telephone. When he is finished talking, he is finished. Communication with him is treasured. It is a miracle.

He is 13 years old, autistic and lives 3,000 miles away from us. When he was a little boy I thought I would never have any kind of relationship with this child. There was a distance between us that was not only earthly miles, but also there were many times he lived somewhere the rest of us can't go. So many times he could not, just could not talk on the telephone. Over the years there were times when my son would put him on the telephone and the only sounds I heard were repetitive voice sounds and sometimes laughter. I cried a lot after those calls.

My friend Ms. Nighthawk said of him once: "He is an angel who sees and hears what we only wish we could. He can truly listen to the wind and talk to the animals."

That was never more evident than one day last year when he was on the phone with me, and he asked me if I would like to hear him play a song. I said "I'd love it" and so he began to play a beautiful haunting melody on what sounded like a flute. When he was finished, I told him how much I had enjoyed his song and asked him what instrument was he playing. He told me he was playing "that little flute you gave me Grandma". I was astonished because "that little flute" was a little clay trinket I bought for him at a powwow two years before that. I always send them something from the powwows. Until then, I had imagined all the grandkids had lost or put away their flutes and moved on to other things.

It was amazing he'd kept it all this time and played it.

I asked him where he learned to play like that and he said: "I have the songs in me, they were always there Grandma". And so when we hung up I had tears in my eyes again, thinking "what is it about this kid that causes me to cry all the time?" He had just shown me the best example of what is sometimes called "blood memory/clan memory/ancestral memory", and I was so overwhelmed with feelings and emotions that all I could do was cry. Again.

After a few days of digesting his talent, I called his father, my oldest son and told him I was considering spending a lot of money, close to a hundred dollars, on a red cedar handmade Native American flute for Grandson and asked if he thought it would be alright to send such a gift. Ownership of a serious instrument like that one would be after all, a big responsibility for Grandson. He agreed and thought it would be a good gift.

The flute was bought and I spent a couple of weeks making a fringed flute bag out of soft suede cloth for it. On a trip to Tahlequah a couple years earlier, I had brought back a Cherokee Nation seal emblem, and I sewed that onto his flute bag.

After he had had the flute for a while, there came a phone call with an offer of another song, this time on the new flute. The first song I heard him play on it made me cry again. His notes are clear and strong. It is beautiful music for my ears and for my soul.

The newsletter, Renewing Traditions, proudly publishes "Grandson’s Flute and the Ancestral Memory"  in the fall 2006 edition. Wado, Annette. 

Annette's Business Card

© Page revised by Peggy Sanders Brennan with artists' submissions January 15, 2007       

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