The Makah people of the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula refer to themselves as Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx, which translates roughly to "the people who live by the rocks and seagulls." The early Makah were skilled mariners, using several types of canoes which they carved from western red cedar for various purposes - war, whaling, fishing, sealing, carrying cargo, and long voyages. Today, roughly 1400 Makah live in and around their traditional lands near Neah Bay on the Makah Indian Reservation. The carving of their skilled woodworkers can range in size from tiny masks to totems and giant, oceangoing canoes. Whaling and fishing have been central to Makah culture for thousands of years. The Makah are the only tribe to be granted whaling rights by treaty with the US government, in the Treaty of Neah Bay signed in 1855. While the Makah voluntarily suspended whale hunting in the 1920s due to the near extinction of whales from commercial whaling, they exercised their treaty right to hunt whales once in 1999 before court decisions blocked further legal hunting.
Makah women have a tradition of basketry back to time immemorial. They use grasses, tree bark, or roots to make a variety of baskets and mats for various uses. Some Makah baskets are so tightly woven that they are watertight. Today, the tradition is carried on by both women and men. This photo, taken sometime between about 1900 and 1910, shows a Makah basketmaker on the beach, probably at Port Townsend. She is using cedar bark strips to make a dry storage container.
The photographer, James McCurdy, was born in Port Townsend in 1872. He spent many years of his childhood in Neah Bay on the Makah reservation and returned to Port Townsend in 1894.
Caption information source: Makah Tribe website at https://makah.com Caption information source: "Northwest Coast Basketry,” by Silvia Koros for the Burke Museum, retrieved from https://www.burkemuseum.org/static/baskets/Teachersguideforbasketry.htm. Caption information source: Charles T. Hommel, A Guide to Historical Photograph Collections in Seattle, p. 33
Subjects (inc. Corp Name): Women; Baskets; Basket making Makah Indians
