Tribes set basket sale, displays

ORONO – The ninth annual Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance holiday sale will be held 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13, at the University of Maine’s Hudson Museum on the Orono campus. It is free and open to the public. Early bird shopping will be held 9-10 a.m. for a $10 admission fee.

The sale and demonstration was launched nine years ago to promote an awareness and appreciation of Maine Indian culture and traditions.

The event provides visitors an opportunity to purchase one-of-a-kind brown-ash splint and sweetgrass baskets, carvings, jewelry and birch-bark work of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot artists, all while taking in traditional singing and drumming, and sampling native foods.

The alliance was formed in 1993 after the death of renowned Penobscot basket maker Madeline Shay. At that time fewer than 15 basket-makers were under the age of 50.

Now the alliance has some 70 members who gather to sell baskets three times each year – the holiday sale at the Hudson Museum, the Native American Festival at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor in July, and the Common Ground Fair in Unity in September.

Members of the alliance also offer basket-making classes for tribal members. Since 1990 the Maine Arts Commission has awarded 85 Maine Indian basketry apprenticeships to support the perpetuation of Maine’s oldest art form.

There will be more than 30 vendors at this year’s event. The prices of the baskets range from $30 to $800. Many will be sold by the artists who made them.

Other events scheduled include brown-ash pounding and work-basket demonstrations, a book signing, drumming and singing, the sale of traditional foods and a nonperishable food drive to benefit the Fiddlehead Food Pantry. The sales of the traditional foods benefit the Penobscot Nation DHS Activities Fund. The Fiddlehead Food Pantry provides food for First Nation People in the Wabanaki regions.

All vendors, artists and performers are required to be members of one of Maine’s four federally recognized tribes. This ensures that the cultural activities and the products purchased are authentic.

Events scheduled during the sale Dec. 13 are as follows:

. Early bird shopping, 9-10 a.m., $10. Tickets available from the Hudson Museum Shop, 581-1903.

. Welcome by the host tribe, the Penobscot Nation, and the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, 10 a.m.

. Brown-ash pounding by Eldon Hanning of the Micmac tribe, 10:30-11 a.m.

. Brown-ash pounding by Jeremy Frey, Passamaquoddy, 11 a.m.-noon.

. Book signing with Ed Rice, author of “Baseball’s First Indian: Louis Sockalexis.”

. Traditional food sale in the Bodwell Area. Hull corn soup and fry bread, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

. Traditional drumming and singing by the Burnurwurbskek Singers, 1:30-2:30 p.m.

For more information, call 581-1901 or visit www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum.