Betty Maney

Partial Transcript: My name is Betty Maney. I live in the Big Cove community. I'm also a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. I am a basket weaver. (side comment)
Now, what I wanted to add to what she was talking about in the way of learning and teaching and keeping this basket weaving alive - it amazes me that she keeps her grandchildren around and she doesn't shoo them off when she's working. They participate in every part of it. Just like earlier, you saw her little grandson Chogi. He cuts it and he pulls it out and so does Davi, his bigger brother. But a little bit, little history on me. I learned white oak basket weaving; my mother Geraldine Walkingstick, when she married my dad, John Welch, she wasn't a basket weaver. Somehow or another, it must have skipped her generation.

Partial Transcript: But when she married Dad, my paternal grandmother, Annie Powell Welch came to Mom one day after she had a couple of us, probably me and Mary. She told my mom, she said, if you will help me weave these baskets, then when I take them to Qualla Arts and Crafts, we can split the money, because you're probably going to need extra money to buy milk and diapers for your little ones. So that's how Mom learned. The earliest memory I have is Mom walking out to the wood pile. She grabbed the axe and we went up on the hillside. She chopped down a tree. I didn't really understand what she was doing at the time. When she chopped down the tree, she kind of cut it away and looked at the growth rings on the white oak. If it was a good tree, she'd trim it down and break it down and carry the sticks home.

Partial Transcript: And we were always with her. When I was little, I don't ever recall hearing the word babysitter because we didn’t have babysitters; we were always with our mom. And we were, she was like the mama hen and we were all the little chicks running along behind her, keeping up with her. So when she got back, we never got in her way or bothered her. We was just around it. So, I grew up in it. She would sit down and she'd break the white oak down and pull it apart into splint. The next step she would scrape each one. We were with her when she went out to gather the dyes and how she placed it in the wash tub with her dyes and the scraped splint, added water and boiled it. And after I finished the seventh grade, she moved us away from Cherokee. So, we were gone for a long time. She didn't weave baskets and by the time I was 18, I had a family of my own. So, she moved back here with the rest of my siblings. And by the way, I'm the oldest of eight, so that's how come I remember so much. I stayed with my family. I didn't come home with the rest of the family. And as years went on, I’d kind of come back and forth. But one day I came home, and she was weaving baskets again. And I said, “Mom, can I have some white oak?”

Partial Transcript: She said, “Sure, take what you need”. So, I went and prepared it, cut the splints, wove a basket. And if I recall correctly, I wove three small planters about, you know, about six inches wide and, maybe, 4 inches deep. And I sold them because I had little ones on my own, so I needed some milk and diapers too. So, that's why I wanted to say I lived it. So when, by the time I was ready to weave, nobody sat down and taught me because from a little child, I learned the process all the way up watching my mother. And we just didn't bother her. We just watched what she'd done. We just played in her shavings or whatnot. And, so that's how I learned with white oak.

Partial Transcript: By the time, like Maryanne, I participated in the River Cane revival about 20-something years ago. And that's how I got into River Cane. So up to that point, we didn't know much. We just knew there were cane weavers. And I think the two remaining weavers that were left at the time were Ramona, Ramona Lossie, and her sister Lucille Lossiah. And those were our teachers. And so now we have, you know, quite a few of river cane weavers doing double weaves. And the thing that I remember the most about the, the importance historically of river cane double weaves was the burial basket. And people said, well, did they, how did they put them in there when you buried them? I said, “No, no, no, no!” I said, “They didn't put our bodies in the baskets!” Because historically, they were little baskets with the lid on it, but they were double weaves. And I guess when people passed and they were buried, they put precious items in there. Mary might can say that better than I can. But that's what that burial basket was for. It wasn't to put bodies in. So, that's what I remember about learning about river cane baskets was the burial basket.