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Transcription: [00:00:21]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
change those in many, many different kinds of efforts so that they can live for generations to come.

[00:00:29]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
On the stage with me is Nettie Watt of the Seneca Indian Reservation from Allegany, New York,

[00:00:36]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Greg Arnold of the Makah Reservation, the Makah Nation from Neah Bay, Washington and head of the Makah Tribal Museum,

[00:00:45]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
and on his way over here with one of the support cast is Greg Colfax, a traditional woodcarver and mask maker from the Makah Nation.

[00:00:59]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
I'm Rayna Green, director of the American Indian program at the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, and I'm from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

[00:01:08]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
I am neither a mask maker nor a basketmaker and do not engage in the traditional skills of my own people, I have never been taught them.

[00:01:18]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Who you see on the stage with me, however, are people who have learned from their relations, learned from their families, learned from people around them

[00:01:28]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
who have preserved various parts of American Indian culture.

[00:01:32]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Mrs. Watt learned Seneca basketmaking from her in-laws, not directly from her family,

[00:01:39]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
and I'd like her to comment on the method of learning that she had when she learned to do basketmaking, which--

[00:01:51]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
of which she is now one of the major figures at the Seneca Nation of Indians long known for their skills as basketmakers.

[00:01:59]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
Nettie, when--when you first--when you first learned from your in-laws, what made you wanna learn?

[00:02:06]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
They were basketmakers and did you just decide that you wanted to do that or--or did they encourage you or what?

[00:02:13]
{SPEAKER name="Nettie Watt"}
No, they never encouraged me. I just watched how they did their baskets, but after a few years, I wanted to learn to do it myself.

[00:02:21]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
So you watched them several years--

[00:02:21]
{SPEAKER name="Nettie Watt"}
[[Cross Talk]] I watched them--yes, mm-hmm, and learned how to do it.

[00:02:27]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
What was the first basket you ever made?

[00:02:29]
{SPEAKER name="Nettie Watt"}
Well, it was one of these.

[00:02:32]
{SPEAKER name="Rayna Green"}
What's--what--what do you call that basket?

[00:02:33]
{SPEAKER name="Nettie Watt"}
[[Cross Talk]] This is a--an automobile shopper.