Personal Stories

"A Song Made Visible"

A northern California basket maker named Mrs. Matt was hired to teach basket making at a local university.  After three weeks, her students complained that all they had done was sing songs.  When, they asked, were they going to learn to make baskets?  Mrs. Matt, somewhat taken aback, replied that they were learning to make baskets.  She explained that the process starts with songs that are sung so as not to insult the plants when the materials for the baskets are picked.  So her students learned the songs and went to pick the grasses and plants to make their baskets.

Upon their return to the classroom, however, the students again were dismayed when Mrs. Matt began to teach them yet more songs.  This time she wanted them to learn the songs that must be sung as you soften the materials in your mouth before you start to weave.  Exasperated, the students protested having to learn songs instead of learning to make baskets.  Mrs. Matt, perhaps a bit exasperated herself at this point, thereupon patiently explained the obvious to them: “You’re missing the point,” she said, “a basket is a song made visible.”

I do not know whether Mrs. Matt’s students went on to become exemplary basket makers.  What I do know is that her wonderfully poetic remark – which suggests the interconnectedness of everything, the symbiosis of who we are and what we do – embodies a whole philosophy of Native life and culture and speaks volumes about the nature of Native objects to Native peoples themselves.--- excerpt from W. Richard West, “A Song Made Visible,” Museum News, September/October 2004, pp. 35-36.