I was about seven years old when I learned how to make baskets from wa…

I was about seven years old when I learned how to make baskets from watching my mother. Whenever Mother would sit out there in the yard, she’d be taking out splints. I’d gather up all those short ones, and I’d try to make a basket. I couldn’t make them at the beginning. My mother, she didn’t really teach me how to make the basket; I learned how to make a basket just by seeing.

Emma Taylor Carolinian

Source

Interview, 1977; quoted in M. Anna Fariello, Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of Our Elders (2009), Cherokee Traditions, Hunter Library, Western Carolina University

form: interview
work: Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of Our Elders
year: 1977

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“I was about seven years old when I learned how to make baske…” Emma Taylor. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-01CE12A377. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/01ce12a377

More from Emma Taylor

We used to have plenty of cane right by the river, but they’ve been building so many roads by the river they’ve just destroyed our river. We have to go clear to Tennessee to get our cane.

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