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Transcription: [00:20:19]

{SPEAKER name="Greg Colfax"}
have another way of thinking about these. So I feel it's important that we know that it's for a wall, it's not for traditional use.
[00:20:26]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Many of us think it's important to let you know that not all American Indian, or Alute. or Inuit art is art to the people who use them.
[00:20:43]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Some of them, like the baskets you see the Watts made have a very practical use.
[00:20:49]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
They are made for a very practical reason. Other things have deep religious significance, a special religious significance.
[00:20:59]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
But to Indian people, everything has a religious significance. The baskets you see are not just for practical use.
[00:21:07]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The mask you see is not, in this instance, is for a wall; is for an artistic purpose,
[00:21:15]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
but has a meaning behind it, and has a tradition, and a way of life that really is very deeply meaningful to Indian people.
[00:21:25]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The materials they are made out of, the tools that are used to make them, these things are, uh, have a history.
[00:21:34]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
They don't only exist simply as art objects to hang up or to use; they have a story behind them; they have a meaning.
[00:21:45]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
I'd like to raise another issue, both with the Lucenio people who hear,
[00:21:52]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
and the Seneca people who hear, with respect to their attempts to, remember...older traditions.
[00:22:04]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
I wanted to ask Netty Watt about how she gets the designs for the baskets, and how it is that all the different styles develop.
[00:22:17]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Many, many Native people, as we've said here already, Greg says, that sometimes he copies from pictures, or goes to museums.
[00:22:24]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
We see older things. How do you do all of the different styles that you do?
[00:22:32]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
Well, I just remember the old baskets. The baskets the older people made. And I try to keep that in mind, not to lose the signs.
[00:22:44]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
And that's the -- Well like this one. They made a lot of these in -- quite a while ago.
[00:22:56]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
And they were called the shopping basket, but it's for the automobile basket, they call it the automobile baskets.
[00:23:04]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
To put between the seats. Narrow, narrow baskets. And then we made the market baskets, the oldest they used to make.
[00:23:14]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
It's wider and it's not so deep. And those I remember are the oldest baskets.
[00:23:21]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
The hampers -- we don't make hampers anymore because they take too much material. The laundry baskets; those are the oldest baskets we used to make.
[00:23:39]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Yeah. These all date back from the 19th century, these are all styles done in the 19th century, and developed then.
[00:23:44]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The older style of containers that Seneca, and all of the Iroquois people, were different.
[00:23:51]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Different materials, so basket making of this kind really does date from the 19th century,
[00:23:56]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
and this Mrs. Watt's talking about some of those different styles, and looking at the old ones, and then reconstructing them, and changing some things.
[00:24:05]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
When you change things how have you changed them? Or why?
[00:24:10]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Maybe like the handles that I was talking about, that we were talking about earlier.

[[Cross Talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
Yes. Oh like the handles.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
{Speaker 2} Yeah
[00:24:15]


{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
Well, our handle makers are gone, they always used the wood handles. So we have to resort for some other material for the handles. And these are modern kind.
[00:24:30]

[[Cross Talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The double handles here --

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
Yes, uh huh --

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
-- are woven material; different than what they would have done --

{SPEAKER name="Netty Watt"}
Yes.
[00:24:37]

Transcription Notes:
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