Marie Hall

Partial Transcript: Hi. My name’s Marie Hall. I am a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians from the Big Cub Community. My mother, Emily Wolf Smith, was a basket maker and a basket weaver and sister to Geraldine Walking Stick Welch, who was a sister to Mary Thompson, so we’re all related. And my mother used to tell a story about her making baskets as a child. She used to make the baskets and then when they would all go to the store or go to sell their baskets, they each had money to contribute to buying groceries. So that’s kind of how it helped them to subsist. You know, to live. And I remember growing up with my mom making baskets that to me, it was work. And though people love it and they make them and they’re beautiful but that just didn’t come down to me. I’m not a basket maker or a basket weaver. My sister is. And my daughter is, but somehow, I missed that gene. I missed the love for it, I guess. But I love the beauty of it. I own a lot of baskets that are made by relatives. But for me, I saw it as work. I mean, I remember my mom being tired and having to sell baskets even if she loved them and wanted to keep them. She had to sell them so we could live. So we could have food on the table. And I remember her working with river cane. She had me like go get her materials and bring them to her or something. And that stuff cuts your hands. So for me, it was work, but I think a lot of today’s youth -- to help just to grow -- needs to know more about the love of it. That’s really what I think that this film needs to help other people to know that there is a love for it. I’m not – I can’t be the only one that can appreciate it, but not know how to do it, you know. I think people need to appreciate it and do it. I’m probably too old to learn a new trick right now.

Partial Transcript: Well, it is important to keep it going – the tradition of basket making – because it’s who we are. It really is. Because it’s – this was a matriarchal society and baskets were done by the women. I know my dad used to help with my mom in that he would go and harvest white oak, you know. I remember going up on the mountain with him in the snow and coming down with this big stick of white oak so my mom could make baskets. And he would help make handles for the baskets. But it really was a woman’s thing, I guess. And my mom weaved and she did beadwork and she did pottery. She did all these womanly things, I guess, and I think that, in today’s society, we’re getting away from what is natural, I guess, for women versus men. If I could have been a kept housewife, that would have been great, but that didn’t happen for me. I worked my whole life. In an office setting, you know. So I feel like I missed out, and I think that if a lot of younger people would realize that they are missing out by not learning these crafts and handing them down and keeping the traditions going. You know, we are going to die out eventually if we don’t do these things.