Other American Studies Commons^™

From Fishing Weirs To Fancy Baskets: How Changes In Native American Basketry Forms Reflect Changes In The Economic Independence Of Native American Women During Colonization, Heidi J. Pickering

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

Contrary to the absence of Native American women in many reports and journals of early explorers and colonists, Native American women from the Coastal Algonquin and Wasco/Wishram communities played a central role in early trade with Euro-Americans through their traditional socioeconomic status as agricultural and subsistence gatherers and inter/intra-tribal tradeswomen. These native women harvested available natural resources for food, bark, and fiber with which they fed their communities and constructed baskets in standard units of measurement for trade reflecting that pre-contact trade networks and food value systems were well established and highly valued. Through an examination of scholarly research regarding …