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Transcription: [00:10:57]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
Well um, it's been kind of hard to keep up the tradition of good death.
[00:11:04]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
The other generation are not very interested, so far.
[00:11:09]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
We've taught them to do basket work, but they would prefer to do bead work,
[00:11:15]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
which is a little bit easier. Ha, Ha [[laugh]].
[00:11:18]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
But we keep trying, for some of them to learn.
[00:11:25]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
You have been teaching. Both of you have been teaching in the Tribal Museum at the Seneca-Iroquois, uh, with workshops there?
[00:11:34]

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
I have.

[Cross Talk]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
You have.

{SPEAKER name="Neddy Watt"}
Yes, I know--
[00:11:36]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Ruth, when did you learn -- did you always do basket making with your mother? Did sh--
[00:11:42]


{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
No, not always. I, uh, started to make the whole basket about 20 years ago,
[[background singing]]
[00:11:50]

{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
and there I almost gave up because it was it was, it took a lot of patience to start from the beginning,
[[background singing continues]]
[00:11:59]

{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
and so after awhile I did get enough courage to finish a whole basket Ha Ha [[laughs]],
[00:12:07]


{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
but I don't do it continuously. I only do it when I have time.
[[background singing]]
[00:12:15]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
[[mic real loud]]
Do you think now that you see generations coming up behind you will preserve the tradition that your mother now represents, and that you now represent?
[00:12:29]

{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
Oh yes. I -- my nieces -- I have three nieces who are quite interested in learning.
[00:12:35]

{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
In fact, one of my nieces has worked with my grandmo -- with my mother at the Seneca Museum,
[00:12:42]

{SPEAKER name="Ruth}
and I think they are all quite interested to carrying on.
[00:12:50]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
One of the things that has struck all of us as we worked with the tribal museums,
[00:12:55]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
and something I think you need to know is that many of the tribal museums which are relatively new
[00:13:01]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
have a great struggle simply to have artifacts that other major museums, even like the Smithsonian, especially like the Smithsonian,
[00:13:11]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
have in their collections. And so the tribal museums are now struggling to have objects in them
[00:13:17]


{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
which people see all over the country but which now our own tribal people cannot see.
[00:13:23]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
And so crafts people, like the Watts, are, and like Greg Colfax, and Greg Arnold who runs the tribal museum at Makah,
[00:13:34]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
are essential to the good health of the tribal museums because, otherwise, the reproduction of artifacts which are now the oldest ones,
[00:13:44]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
maybe not available to tribes because they are elsewhere, and in other hands.
[00:13:49]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
It's essential that these arts survive and flower, and that younger people are, in many cases, like Ruth, who learned at a later point, who came back, and now feel committed and want to, want to teach and learn.
[00:14:05]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
So this is an important thing. I'd like to ask Greg Colfax, as a wood carver, a mask maker, why are you so deeply involved in this?
[00:14:14]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Did this come as a part of growing up, or is it relatively new for you?
[00:14:20]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
And what, what, what does it, what does it entail for you to, to keep on preserving this tradition; working with it? Are you teaching other people?
[00:14:33]

Transcription Notes:
Had to reopen. Stamp at top was way off, and none had been inserted elsewhere. Speaker entries done wrong.