Indian Baskets as Social Currency

This basket was given to the Mission Mill Museum in the 1970s, probably 1974, by the McGilchrist family, they gifted a collection which was then put on display in an exhibit. The basket is still in the museum (see photos) but appears to be more worn than in the 1974 newspaper photos. The repair work is evident, some cordage on the lip of the broken basket. It is coming apart, but is possible this is a 1970s attempt to repair and make the basket look better for an exhibit. Such practices, repairing baskets for solely performative reasons, are not a practice of professional museums.

The basket is attributed to a Kalapooia women (unnamed) the collector, Mrs. Arthur Moore, is named in the article. The material of the basket suggests that it is of reservation era weaving, using hazel twitches only. The style is of a shellfish gathering basket, which would have been more common for coastal tribes, which the Kalapuyans were not. But at the reservation some 32-25 tribes intermingled and styles from the tribes were mixed together and there were Tillamookan tribal people at the reservation who could influence the style. The hazel construction is from a need to sell baskets to Americans outside of the reservation, so the tribes copied English randing styles to make strong durable baskets with durable materials like hazel. Native Oregon hazel is plentiful and free in the Coast Range forests where the reservation is located. In conversations with Margaret Mathewson she has said the original Kalapuya style of weaving was mostly exclusively out of juncus rush (juncus effusius), with hazel twitches probably used to stabilize baskets that needed some stability, like pack baskets. But otherwise the near-sole-use of hazel is a reservation era change in styles and materials to form a cottage industry around weaving, to generate an income within the income-deficient area around the reservation. There are other theories as to the origin of this type of basket. Southwest Oregon tribes, like the Coos made similar baskets, and there were some SWO natives at Grand Ronde. Tribal nations like the Takelma and some athapaskans could have made this type of basket. But the likelihood is that this basket was made in the early 20th century on the Grand Ronde Reservation and that the weaver was Kalapuyan. Kalapuyans also had baskets traded into their families, and if so this could have been from a Kalapuyan family that had such a basket traded in. There are many examples of traded in cultural objects in collections in museums today.

Generally the winter was for making a pile of baskets and in the spring the native women would venture out to local towns and sell the baskets, usually for only a few dollars each. The basket, because of its size and strength was likely used as a laundry basket for many years in someone’s house.  Then later it began to break and was sold to a collector. The material is mostly breaking down at the rim and could be repaired and stabilized by a good weaver in the appropriate style.

We can see here the way the Indian Baskets, into the 1970s, are used as social currency. The “pioneer family” founders of the museum and collection continued to collect and donate as a form of social currency in Salem, the members of the association being from the oldest white pioneer families gathering around the project of promoting the museum. It appears that in the mid 1970s the museum association led a media blitz to generate interest in the “new” museum (est. 1964), only just formulated out of a couple pioneer, missionary,  and settler era buildings (Lee house, Parsonage, Thomas Kay Woolen Mill) with extensive  advertising and media heavy restorations of the old buildings, publicized donations of funds, and then publicized displays of gift giving in Salem area newspapers. (The Lee House is thought to the be the oldest American building in the West (built 1842)) Read more about the early settlement of Chemeketa (Salem).The Original siting of the Lee House was on Chemeketa Creek (renamed Mill creek), at what is today the junction of Mill Creek and Liberty Street.

Curiously absent in all of the photos in the collection are Native people in the 1970s, the tribes of western Oregon still terminated and seeking restoration and not yet organized enough to be known by the mill staff. The Grand Ronde tribe would not be restored until 1983- the tribe where the majority of Kalapuyans are members historically. During this period Indians would be placed on floats and sit through parades, in a practice spanning decades (see Grand Ronde and Spirit Mountain Floats at the Rose Parades for more than 30 years), or appear at awards ceremonies and pageants to show an exotic “American Indian” culture different from white American culture.

This use of natives and their cultural objects is purely performative to benefit the white establishment in some manner, almost never is there any benefit to Native peoples or tribes.  The stereotypical characterization then is mascot-ish. This type of performance is continually asked of Native people and tribes today. Native people today seek to change the format and message to benefit them, to tell their history, or show part of their tribal culture in hopes that non-native people will learn about and come to respect Native peoples more. But generally the meaning escapes many people who care little about the experiences of Native people and only concerned that they are entertained in some fashion.

Using “authentic” Native objects as social capitol eliminates any type of co-education or respect and simply capitalizes on the collection and ownership of Indian things, called “Indian curios” in earlier times. Most events like this do not tell accurate history, to not educate about Native culture, and tend to rely on settler-colonial narratives of “Indians” of which most are fictionalized and romanticized “memories” of early Oregon pioneers that have no relevance to actual history, Native peoples or tribes.

Museums now are working to understand and change the relationship to colonized settler practices, and the Mission Mill some 10 years ago returned a old canoe to Grand Ronde Reservation, a canoe found buried in the clays of a stream near Tangent, Oregon. The Mission Mill also offers one of the first Kalapuya exhibits, it was written by me about 10 years ago and rendered by museum staff. It is in the parsonage today.

Many thanks, Hayu Masi, to Kylie Pine for helping find these materials today.