July 30, 2009
Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
Page 2
Courtney Gold preserves heritage through basketry
create an 8-inch base using the
technique they share can take
about seven hours. T h e total
time invested can be m ore than
80 hours to harvest, prepare and
dye the fibers and weave a bas
ket.
G old sometimes has to travel
hundreds o f miles to find the
p la n ts — tu le , c a tta ils, d o g
b an e— she n eed s fo r fibers.
Native plants have been lost to
urban and agricultural develop
ment. Some on federal land are
sprayed since they’re considered
invasive plants.
A t one time she tried to grow
th e p lan ts at h er S cappoose
hom e, b u t eventually stopped.
“T he fiber in the plants that
grow wild is much, much bet
ter. They’re stronger, taller,” she
said.
By Virginia Grantier
She had waited for years, for
just the right time, to make a trip
across the country to be with it,
to see it. A nd when the museum
staff brought out the old bas
ket, she could feel her heart be
gin to pound.
As if a beloved som eone had
appear unexpectedly from be
hind a door.
She couldn’t speak for about
20 m inutes, re m em b ers P at
Courtney G old, nationally hon
ored American Indian artist.
Staff m em bers at H arvard’s
Peabody M useum o f Archaeol
ogy let h er hold the basket,
which is m ore than 200 years
old, in her gloved hands. While
she did, they asked her w hat she
was feeling. She remembers just
waving a hand to indicate she
couldn’t speak.
“To m e it represented my
culture; I felt that I was touch
ing my ancestors... It was such
an emotional and spiritual expe
rience,” G old said. “I held it for
six hours.”
The Wasco Tribe, her tribe—
a branch o f the Chinooks w ho
lived at the Columbia River—
traded this basket in 1805 to
explorers Lewis and Clark.
T he basket’s intricate design
o f horizontal faces set in geo
m etric shap es re fle c te d th e
tribe’s view o f time as a circle:
no beginning, no end. Baskets,
items o f cultural arid spiritual
m eaning, also held the p ow
dered salmon and other items
the tribe used to b arter w ith
other tribes.
W hen the tribe was forced by
Euro-Americans to leave for the
reservation in central O regon in
the 1850s, the move tore at the
fabric o f th eir culture, their
practices, by separating them
from all that was familiar.
T hey had to leave behind
plants so valued for basket-mak
ing, medicine and other uses that
prayers w ere spoken prio r to
harvesting.
D u rin g the decades after,
many cultural traditions, includ
ing basket-weaving, were almost
H er parents raised their fam
ily in a cabin in the woods near
Warm Springs, and taught their
children respect for the earth,
including the responsible har
vesting o f native plants and the
im portance o f always saying
prayers o f thanks. They partici
pated in traditional ceremonies,
but basket-weaving skills weren’t
passed down.
G o ld learned th e cultural
value o f baskets during child
hood visits to the Maryhill M u
seum o f A rt in G oldendale,
Wash., where her m other would
point out the beautiful Wasco
baskets.
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Gold with her latest work at the School for
Advanced Research (SAR) In Santa Fe, NM.
lost.
So in 2009, w hat is left? Gold,
for one.
She now harvests native plant
fibers, and prays and weaves.
G old was in her 50s when she
started to learn to weave.
A fter college, she used math
skills honed at W hitman College
in Walla Walla to work as a re
searcher in a hydraulics lab at
W ashington State University,
then taught m ath at community
colleges before returning to re
search work for state and fed
eral environmental agencies. She
also worked for the Bonneville
Power Administration in P ort
land on projects, including a
study on environmental effects
o f Columbia River dams.
A bout 20 years ago, she and
a sister, b o th enrolled mem bers
in th e W asco N a tio n o f the
Confederated Tribes o f Warm
Springs, decided to learn how to
weave, in part to help keep that
aspect o f th e W asco culture
from dying. W ith the help o f the
few weavers left, and through
research and studying baskets in
museums, the sisters learned.
G old’s persistence resulted in
mastery. She has received nu
m erous honors, including the
2007 National E ndow m ent for
th e A rts H eritag e A w ard in
W ashington, D.C. for her art
w ork and for her outreach ef
forts to teach workshops and to
fo rm a new o rg an izatio n o f
Native basket weavers.
She was featured on National
Public Television’s award-win
ning “C raft in A m erica” p ro
gram and was a consultant for
an exhibit at the Smithsonian
National Museum o f the Ameri
can Indian. G old also directed a
film about basket weavers, and
her work is in public and private
collections here and abroad.
In the 1990s, as she learned
to weave, she saw a picture o f
the 1805 basket stored at the
Peabody Museum and resolved
to go and study it w hen she felt
confident enough in her own
weaving. W hen she took the trip
in 1998, she found a clear con
nection with its maker.
“The way (the basket weaver)
started at the base is exactly how
I start a basket,” G old said. To
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