The stories baskets tell
A Haida weaver shares her knowledge
November 08th, 2024
Delores Churchill is revered as a cultural guardian. Richard (Chalyee Éesh) Peterson, president of The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, says she “revived the fading art of Haida weaving.”
Renowned weaver Delores Churchill blends memoir with a weaving guide, exploring ancestral techniques, cultural preservation, and the interconnectedness of Indigenous traditions across generations.
Review by Odette Auger
In From a Square to a Circle, renowned Haida weaver Ilskyaalas, Delores Churchill explores the art of communicating about family, culture, community and place. Part memoir, part how-to weaving guide, Churchill generously gifts her knowledge to next generations.
An award-winning weaver, her life’s work has been to preserve ancestral techniques. As a lecturer, consultant and researcher, she has taught weaving in many countries and has helped museum curators identify works.
A spruce root seaweed harvest basket
Beginning the way old stories start, Churchill writes: “This is what I was told, and how I know it to be.” Weaving is an ancient tradition throughout the world, likely, says Churchill “in use before pottery or carved containers were made.” Through a Haida lens, this represents for Churchill one of the concepts of yah’guudang (respect)—that all things are connected. “Weaving belongs to all of us. Weaving connects to all other cultures and people.”
The author explains her intention is to support Haida instructors, although she has taught weavers of many cultures around the world and has learned that “weaving techniques are actually common to weaving worldwide.” However, the materials and the particular ways these techniques are executed by the Haida “are unique and it is our intellectual property,” she says. Churchill notes that while copyright laws do not properly protect Indigenous property rights, the Haida “own intellectual property in the collective through maternal inheritance.” With that in mind, Churchill and her mother’s weaving classes include a respectful request to “non-Haida students not to sell or teach the weaving of Haida-style.”
Delores’ mother Selina and Delores returning from a harvest. Photo by Tom Sadowski.
There is a dance between these concepts that Churchill moves through, re-visits and emphasizes throughout. She herself has learned to weave from Tlingit and Tsimshian weavers in addition to Haida. “Because they shared their intellectual property with me, I have been able to pass these skills and information on to the next generations of their people.” The last chapter is entirely devoted to weaving techniques, with photos and step-by-step directions.
“Other First Nations weavers who have taken up my mother’s method apply their unique tribal techniques, and the weaving identifiers of their Nations remain evident,” says Churchill. “This sharing of knowledge and method is part of our histories, revealed by the baskets that we weave.”
The book’s title is taken from the unique Haida weaving technique known as “from square to circle,” that Churchill describes: “A traditional plaited cedar bark hat begins as a square, transforms into a circle, widens to a gently sloping crown, and evolves to a wide brim. The hat’s warp holds the hat’s shape, while the spiral weaving technique allows no breach on the walls.”
Churchill has studied the techniques of baskets discovered at archaeological sites, including the spruce hat of Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi (Long Ago Person in Southern Tutchone). Found in Champagne and Aishihik First Nations territories in northern BC in 1999, the young man was 18 to 19 years old at the onset of the Little Ice Age, a regional cooling event between 1300-1850. The ancient hunter introduced himself through his spruce root hat first, when the hat rose up into the air in the wind created by the research archaeologists’ helicopter. Through mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited exclusively from our mothers, Churchill says she learned she was related to the Long Ago Person. Scientists also found another 17 living relatives among local Champagne and Aishihik First Nations through maternal lines.
Delores in Washington D.C. with all her granddaughters to receive the U.S. National of the Endowments for the Arts, Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.
Roots and transformation are constant themes—with places, relations, interactions and roles wrapped around the key message: Haida culture will endure. Churchill learned from her mother Selina Peratrovich, who was also a master weaver. “Like the cedar work hat, my mother’s life and my life went through many transformations,” says Churchill. “Since the time our ancestors made first contact with Europeans, many things were done to essentially change Indigenous people from ‘squares’ into ‘circles’—to take the ‘Indian’ out of us.”
However, Haida culture has the land, sea and sky as its strong warp. The twining weft is transformation and adaptation “…to hold on to the foundations of our culture and continue as a vibrant people,” explains Churchill.
“The traditional Haida weaving arts teach us how to stay connected and how to continue as Haida.”
9781990776854
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Odette Auger, award-winning journalist and storyteller, is Sagamok Anishnawbek through her mother and lives as a guest in toq qaymɩxʷ (Klahoose), ɬəʔamɛn qaymɩxʷ (Tla’amin), ʔop qaymɩxʷ (Homalco) territories.
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