Seventeen-year-old Gabe Paul (Penobscot) weaving a basket. Gabe was one of several youth language teachers in this workshop teaching others words in the Penobscot language for the basket making materials, tools and processes.

Weaving a rainbow: Woven around a wood block of brown ash splints and sweetgrass, this is a small fancy basket in progress.

Photos: James Francis



The Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA) is the only all-Native organization in the Northeast to represent Indian artisans.

It was formed in 1993 when all of Maine’s 55 existing Wabanaki (members of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot) basketmakers joined together to form an inter-tribal, all Native, nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve traditional ash and sweetgrass basketry, Maine’s oldest art form.

In late 2001, MIBA opened a Wabanaki Arts Center Gallery in Old Town.

MIBA received four grants from MaineCF last year to support a series of five two-day-long tribal community basketry/language workshops, one in each of the reservation communities.

The program encourages access to the traditions of ash and sweetgrass basketry to as many as 60-80 people per workshop. In addition, tribal linguists organize and encourage speaking of native languages during the workshops.

The MaineCF grants came from the Cummings Fund, Washington County Fund, Rural Grants Fund and Aroostook County Fund. This program and others represent a successful state and national model for community efforts to encourage and save community/indigenous art.

For more information, visit the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance website, http://www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum/miba/.

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