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Farm Basket, mid-late 1800s, Wood Splint, Abenaki, Housed at the Hopkinton Historical Society
The Life of a Basket
waligek abaznoda gagalnemenal/ abaznodakad w’eljial.
A good basket holds its maker's hands.
(Jesse Bruchac, "Abaznodaal")
Baskets are very important in Abenaki culture, and Abenaki linguist Jesse Bruchac's poem describes them as having life within them. Abenaki oral tradition ties the people intimately to baskets by way of the natural materials used to make them. According to ethnohistorian Gordon Day, Western Abenakis believe that “man was created by Tabaldak… he created a couple from living wood who pleased him and who became the ancestors of the Indian race” (218).
Abenaki Language and Baskets
In the Abenaki language, words are categorized as either “animate” or “inanimate.” The word for basket, abaznoda, is inanimate. And yet "inanimate" does not mean "less important." Day explains that “many things are alive that whites commonly regard as inanimate, and every living thing has its own peculiar power, more or less specific in kind and limited in quantity” (218). Elie Joubert, an author and teacher of the Abenaki language, elaborates on this point: an animate noun is “the Abenaki way of expressing connectedness with reverence to living things, celestial bodies, and the creation of all things great and grand on this land. The determination was made long ago, by our ancestors according to their view of the world at that time. We as speakers of the language do not question why one bush is animate and another is inanimate.”
Abenaki Culture in a Basket
The basket pictured here captures these relationships between the people, their history, and their land and resources. Unlike many of the fancy baskets seen in museums, it is a strictly utilitarian item--an unusual find, since baskets of this type were often thrown away. The Hopkinton Historical Society obtained this basket from a local farmer named Ebenezer Morrill (1806-1892), who reported that he got it from a Native woman who camped by the river in Contoocook.
In its original description, the Historical Society noted that this basket is sturdy, able to carry heavy items, and that it shows evidence of having been made in relative haste: its splints are not smoothed as they are in more decorative baskets; and its vertical warps are cut off, rather than folded in at the rims.
For all the humble nature of its design, this basket is nevertheless a powerful testament to Native people's continuous presence in the Hopkinton area throughout the 1800s, and in New Hampshire more generally, despite the persistent myth that they "vanished" from this state.
Basketmakers Today
Like basketmakers, advocates and teachers of the language like Jesse Bruchac and Elie Joubert are working to ensure that Abenaki culture and will survive through many more generations. These teachers are adapting to new economies and technologies: Bruchac uses media like YouTube to document his children learning the language. Just as this utilitarian basket has survived two hundred years, carrying histories of its culture, the Abenaki language has also survived, carrying the stories and knowledge of the people who have lived along the river in Contoocook and in other areas of New England since time immemorial.
Works Cited
Bruchac, Jesse Bowman., Joseph Alfred Elie. Joubert, and Jeanne
A. Brink.L8dwaw8gan Wji Abaznodakaw8gan: The Language of Basket Making. Greenfield Center, NY: Bowman, 2010. Print.
Day, Gordon M. Title In Search of New England's Native Past: Selected Essays by Gordon M. Day. Univ of Massachusetts Pr, 1999. Print.
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