Handing down heritage Basket, root-club makers display ancient crafting skills

Gal Frey spent much of her time Saturday at the National Folk Festival braiding sweet grass along the banks of the Penobscot River. Her hands looked like fluttering birds as she worked and spoke to festivalgoers inquiring about her style and methods. By afternoon, Frey had a long, decorative string suitable to be used as a trim for the next fancy basket she makes. It looked delicate but, like the Passamaquoddy Indians who have been using sweet grass in baskets for hundreds of years, the braid was sturdy and durable.

“Someone asked me today where I get the sweet grass or where the ash trees are,” said Frey, who grew up at Pleasant Point and now lives in Indian Township in Washington County. “I told them the marsh and the woods. I won’t tell them where I go for the sweet grass, but I will tell them how to make baskets.”

Like her ancestors and fellow basket makers, Frey is protective of the limited natural resources that Passamaquoddys and other Maine Indians have for a craft that is rigorously being preserved as a folk tradition in the state. In recent years, tribes in Maine – Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac and Maliseet – have been building their reputation as artists.

The significant presence of Maine Indians at this year’s festival is part of an ongoing effort to give the indigenous craftspeople of Maine recognition for their artistry, said Pauleena MacDougall, chair of the festival’s Folk and Traditional Arts. She said the seeds for growth in the basket industry were planted decades ago when the Maine Arts Commission began a still extant apprenticeship program for young Indians to learn crafts from their elders.

Since then, the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance has organized and promoted the industry, and affiliate organizations, such as the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, the Bangor Museum & Center for History, as well as the Hudson Museum and the Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine – all of which had booths at the festival – have worked on some level to preserve the heritage. Over the years, each group has emphasized the importance of basketry and other traditional crafts such as birch bark canoes and root clubs.

And each group sparkled for the three-day run at the festival, where their tents were spread along the southern end of the festival grounds along the Penobscot River. It did not exactly look like the villages that might have populated these riverbanks centuries ago, but some of the same ancient practices were taking place. Visitors tasted hulled corn soup made by Mary Neptune Parker, who ran a restaurant out of her home in Princeton for 25 years. They watched as Jeremy Frey split ash for baskets his mother, Gal, will make. And they marveled at the root clubs sculpted from wood by Stan Neptune and his son Joe Dana, Penobscots from Indian Island.

“It’s sort of expected that we should be at the folk festival – and rightfully so,” said Dana, who is 27 and makes his livelihood from carving. “We don’t live far from here and the river is our territory. I feel good about being at a festival in my hometown with the river in the background. The river was once our highway.”

Demonstrations and discussions took place on both the Narrative and Foodways stages, and items were sold in the marketplace tent. One basket, made by Jeremy Frey, was on sale for $1,500, a price which, if fetched, would make his basket among the highest prices paid for an Indian basket, according to Theresa Hoffman, director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. The decorative basket, which features Frey’s signature medallion carving, did not sell over the weekend, but one interested organization, which asked not to be named, may purchase it. Frey’s work will also be included in a major exhibition in New York City in September.

“We’re part of a national grass-roots movement bringing this traditional art to the forefront,” said Hoffman. “Maine Indian basket makers are considered among the top artists in the United States. Young people like Jeremy are our future.”

While some may scoff at paying $1,500 – or even $40 – for a basket, part of the mission of the alliance is to educate others about the hard work and artistry that goes into creating each piece. The prices may be high by Maine standards but they are competitive in the national crafts scene, said several folk specialists at the festival.

“When there’s a demand for art, prices go up,” said MacDougall. “These baskets are finely made and there’s a lot of artistry that goes into them. We worked hard this year to pull together a program of crafters and demonstrators to talk about their art and their heritage and about who they are as a people. I think it was very successful.”

The stream of visitors to the Folk and Traditional Arts area, especially on Saturday, underscored a widespread interest in native crafts, as well as non-Indian folk crafts including instrument makers, snowshoe makers, wood carvers, rug makers and weavers.

One couple from Maryland took time out from musical performances on the main stages to listen quietly as Neptune and Dana described their methods of making root clubs.

“I’m a carver, too,” said John Urlock of Centreville, Md. “I’ve studied spirit faces in driftwood, and these people are carving in a similar style but have a different product.”

Another man was interested in purchasing one of Dana’s hand-carved root clubs – which sell for more than $100 – and he left his business card hoping to buy more later. “As a collector, this is one of the best clubs I’ve seen,” the man said.

Maine Indians show their work at museums around the state and at several fairs nationally and statewide. But the festival was an important local acknowledgement of the treasures that exist in Bangor’s own region.

“It has been slow and steady,” added Gal Frey. “But to be a part of this festival is only natural. We’re the traditional people in the state.”