 Chief Roger Long-Toshien, it's really an honor to be here today with you and and your colleagues Tell us a little bit about The display that is in front of you and I know some of the work is actually your own craftsmanship Most of the stuff that's here on the table Is either made by me my wife sometimes my son makes stuff Or other Abenaki members of our tribes different tribes Like the quill work here was made by Jim Taylor Who's an excellent quill worker and he does wampum beads and wampum jewelry Then you know Here's something that's actually not made by an Abenaki person and it's a twine bag. It's made by Julia Martin who's Quinn on wampanoag but she lives up in Vermont and She's she does beautiful twine work like this and stuff sash my wife made bowls that Walker Brooks Monroe Brooke made for us and stuff. So pretty much everything here. We somebody in a tribe is made Or you know or from one of the other tribes Abenaki tribes That's we're kind of here to try and teach some of the old culture there's people here that are teaching newer stuff There's people making baskets and you know doing some singing and all sorts of crafts are going on We kind of move this into inside because of the wet weather normally we have a Canvas lean to set up outside where we normally set up and do our talks and Demonstrations and things have a fire cooking food, but we know it's gonna be a very wet weekend So we decided to move into the roost here and kind of roost ourselves This is there a certain period of time Today that your regalia represents. Yeah, the time period that we're we're Portraying here of our ancestors and people that would have been working with us like Snappers over here in the corner and they'll probably talk to him in a little bit but he's here as a French trader who would have come down and traded things and explaining the The the wares that he would have had and the history behind that stuff and how it kind of Intermeshed and interwebbed with the the Abenaki people This is time period is approximately 1750s We have in the past here for the Quad Centennial we had been doing 1609 So the clothing is is much different than it was, you know years back when we were doing the 1609 events here lot more European Clothing shirts made of linen Sometimes cotton Even even our leggings and things are made of wool Not to say they had to been they could have been made of a buckskin, too But a lot of people went over to wearing wool Leggings and wool blankets and stuff that would have been considered a trading item. That would have been something that we Hear the native people would not have been able to make and it was shipped probably from Europe Sometimes things like vermilion was shipped from as far away as China because Vermilion is made from mercury and sulfur and China seems to have large deposits I guess you would call them deposits or pools of mercury and Not very good stuff for you to probably be wearing But the brilliant red that comes from vermilion was was highly sought by many Eastern native people in the past I know you you do a lot of also living history And then that kind of is what your exhibit could be Consider today can you talk about the importance of Just in general the public recognizing The the living history of the abnaki nation. Yeah, you know, there's common saying you can't really go forward without knowing your past and That's kind of the premise of what we're we're working on here There are many people who are doing Modern native things modern abnaki things I've always had a deep interest in history and So, you know, I've done some stuff that's gone back to pre-contact So I do different time periods of Of history and some people call marine actments. I for us we just we prefer calm living history or Experimental archaeology some people might call it because you know, I'm getting older and less Being able to run around in the woods like I used to but going out in the woods and actually living in the clothing bringing the type of food that they had Living out under a lean to for a week or so at a time Teaches you a lot of things, you know starting your fire with flint and steel every day You know, sometimes it don't light so easily you get wet and cold So that's that's also part of the living history Don't do that as much as I used to jokingly We're starting to call ourselves Fort Indians because Which is you know, it was considered kind of a derogatory term But it was natives who hung around the fort And being that we have actual fort that we do hang around in Over in Charlestown, New Hampshire fort for which was again The reason we're there is there was a whole Lot of history dealing with the Abenaki people there If they weren't outside trying to burn the place down during times of peace They were inside trading with the local trader his name was Phineas Stevens and again, that's Snapper, you know, he normally will set up a whole trading Store there and talk about all this stuff and you know Why the natives were there what they were trading for the different things and how they were being used and that's exactly what we do So yeah, so going indoors now and having a nice fireplace and tables and things to sit down on and Talk to people as they come through is it's nice. So like today, you know, this may not be the most historically accurate building for doing a 1750s living history talk and you know What we're doing right now is but it's better than sitting in the rain and trying to talk to People who are coming through getting soaking wet and stuff In all your years of doing Living history, are you finding that the in general the public is more educated or they're more interested in and maybe the details I'm thinking of how people might think about even moving forward in time like eugenics and and and some of the other factors and genocides and you know survival that the people have Gone through gone through It depends on where and who you're talking with Some people you'll get are very Up to date on everything and you know, they're they're all into things and learning about stuff and you get other folks that really You know, they're actually like you're opening their eyes and they're just like wow, I didn't know that happened, you know and that's kind of what we're here for and Again like an event like this. We have different sections people are doing different things, you know We have folks that are doing, you know in pit cooking You know people will be singing Dressed in well modern native clothing. I say modern a clue That's clothing that people wear today when they go to pow owls or maybe, you know, some sort of native gathering Again, our culture is not static It's it's it's not in the vacuum. It's fluid and it's been changing Forever, I mean, you know what our people look like and did Maybe 10,000 years ago Because this would have been a very frozen place and we know they were here. You're in northern Vermont. We have the archaeological evidence You know the Archaeologists anthropologists the science type people for a long time. You just didn't think we had the intelligence to make Boats of some sorts probably skin boats kind of similar to what the Inuit You know are still doing today And living in Arctic conditions But the archaeological evidence is there So we change you know as we went from being hunt to gather people to at least a thousand years ago because we know from again archaeological sites Over in the Connecticut River Valley Where they have found corn beans Squash and even tobacco seeds so we know that our people at least thousand years ago in the Connecticut Valley. We're farming Maybe longer, you know again This archaeology goes along and certain people might find you know a site. They might find something that goes a little further back So, you know, so we change now, you know now we're people are wearing well glass beads and Jewelry and in some cases people are actually just going startness you start seeing at the powwows people are actually sliding back and dressing in Earlier clothing as part of their traditional culture. I mean so when people say a Traditions and I'm wearing my traditional clothing. It all depends at what time in your evolution of your of your people You know, there's a lot of different styles of clothing. I Heard it called living culture. Yeah, and and that is like some something that instead of like Emphasizing colonization or decolonization to actually maybe emphasize a little bit more of the living culture Yeah, of the nation of the people. Yeah, so I mean, you know, it's so everybody's got their their little Nook or corner on what they're doing and I mean, that's what I think makes the celebration here good And a neat thing is that you know, we've got history older history. We've got new history and Hopefully we're seeing stuff that's gonna happen in the future. It's very exciting Thank you so much for sharing with us a little bit this morning and Maybe some of your colleagues might you're welcome Okay, my name is snapper I Actually have become accepted as a friend of the El new tribe. So I I'm very honored to be here. I work At a college but history has always been one of my big interests And so when I had the opportunity to get involved with living history and work with Roger It was something I accepted Pretty easily and he jokes about you know by the change of the hat I can be I can be Dutch I can be English I can be French but today I'm portraying a French person the French were allied with the Abonacci people and So consequently as a trader a fur trader These are all the things that are in front of me the kinds of items that I would bring down maybe from Montreal, Quebec and They'd come down by boat through the lakes and we would be able to meet and you know locations and trade these items out I'm trying to get furs. This is a beaver pelt. I've got otter, but all fur has got value of some kind and These are the kinds of goods that they're not able to make themselves, but at this point in time 1750s are Well documented as being part of their native communities. So Brass kettles which replaced pottery French pottery which is Something that was very very much accepted nice colorful green ware. I've got wool blankets. I've got wool toks I've got wool just material the blanket could have been made into a into garments But they could just have the blanket as a blanket and get material as well. I've got axes. I've got whole blades hose Blades typically were made by deer scapulas the shoulder blade of a deer So having that metal hoe blade is something that can be resharpened and used over and over again the knives Spear points ice chisels These right here are called beaver darts. They were actually used quite a bit with ice fishing because there's a little hole Right here in the dart and what would happen is you'd have a line attached to that and You would spear the fish through the hole and like a harpoon This would be attached to the fish and could go off and then you could pull it back with the line That was attached to that hole So these are just kind of a good representation of things that would be traded back and forth One thing that is different when the French people are dealing with the Abenaki people versus the English or the Dutch is We're much more thinking of this as a gift exchange Friends were family. I mean French didn't to marry in quite a bit So one of the things we'll do is instead of just this is a business transaction We're gonna start first with an exchange of gifts So one of the things two things I have down here that are a bit different I have a bowl of tobacco to offer for the men so that they can have a smoke and I have Thimbles and bells for the women and most people don't under the tobacco concept They get you know put it in your pipe and you and you have a smoke But the thimbles and the bells are something that kind of confuses people They think of thimble strictly for sowing In this case what happened would be with the thimble you could puncture it and Then string some deerskin a leather thong through there and then this would be sewn to the dance gardens So between the bells and the cymbals cymbals when you dance you had that nice little bell-like ring Prior to that deer toes would have been used in place of it So And as far as like my personal dress very much at this point a native influence I'm wearing leggings. I've got a breech clout. I've got a shirt. I've got a sash I'm not wearing moccasins, but traditionally I'd have what are called suye suye debuffs An ox hide shoe, but it's based upon a moccasins sort of design And so we as the French know we don't know this land. We don't know this territory So what are we going to do we're going to be smart and learn from the people who have accepted us in this case The the native people and we're gonna want to adapt our dress to their way of being so at this point We're a blend of of each other's culture We take our example of clothing items from them and they go with the materials kind of from us So it's a blending of things over the years That's terrific. Thank you so much for that. Well, I'm not gonna we And I am a member of the Nalhegan band of Corsac Abadakie of Vermont Right now I'm here at our heritage weekend and What would you like to talk about? Your storytelling that the designs on your bowls They tell a story and they tell sometimes a traditional story Of your culture and your heritage and maybe we could start with some of those Influences and how does that get started? Well first of all I was an artist before but I never really found a focus Most artists have a style or subject matter that they're noted for and I did not But when I decided to dedicate my work to tribal art I found that focus Okay guys I Like doing the designs, but I had to research them because I was at race with my culture And unfortunately there's a whole lot that's been lost So when I was researching and I wanted to make it Abadakie couldn't make it specifically Abadakie I had to include the other members of the Abadakie Confederacy Who had things very much like our own It's in my research, I discovered that the generations that were Denied their language Children being taken away and sterilizations happening. It became a defensive mode to not tell children The stories or to tell them about the culture or to raise them with the culture even though certain things were You know the way you do things is are just sometimes a cultural thing like fishing and planting A lot of people continue to do those things in the Abadakie way But they did not want their children To stand out as native unfortunately So a lot got lost and by the time Frank's back came in as the first anthropologist to do research in the field a lot had been lost and What was left some people didn't want to share because Again, it was not something people wanted to Think about because of all the hurt that had gone For myself, I always knew I was in it I was not raised with it my parents with their separate ways when I was really young So I was raised by my mother who was German She always told me I was native, but I wasn't supposed to talk about it And if I saw my father's family, I was to lower my eyes and cross the street and not talk to them so I had nothing to Tell me what Indian was except the movies and Of course, we know those are not very accurate, but there was always a part of me That was very different from my sister and my mother my sister's my half-sister and I Was the odd man out. I'm like every kid, you know, you think you've been adopted or something because you're different but I wasn't I was just different because of my dad and His heritage came down from Canada His parents lived as proper French family educated and a father was educated and and They didn't talk about it much, but I have a photograph that I swear all the grandmother needs is a cordon cop pipe And that would be great because she really looked the part of being the little Indian woman in a rocking chair But That was the thing you tried to pass, but it was no coincidence that they found each other because with when the father came down from Canada and met her in Haverhill, I think it is Massachusetts Priests were sending people down And putting them in communities of like culture and when I did the genealogy I found Indian on both sides of his parents. So At various times in history people were not allowed to marry without telling their partner Prior to marriage that they were dated my dad had to do that for my mom She told me that he told her about it But in these communities because they all knew each other and knew their Heritage they didn't have to speak of it. They just selected spouses from within the community So it's kind of interesting to To realize that Today there are only two Abadaki reservations both in Canada Order that can be encore. We have no reservations in the United States It's not something that we really are looking at we're certainly not looking at casinos or anything along that line We are building a community I'm very very proud of what our chief Don Stevens is doing We have now got a cultural center and I'm looking forward to Contributing to that he's finding Means in the airport to have Abadaki items displayed so that when people are coming on and off planes They will see The heritage and know we're still here I decided to Dedicate my artwork to tribal Work because every time I picked up a book about woodland natives We weren't there We aren't there Very very little about Abadaki and very often It's labeled Wabanaki So it's not specific And so I'm hoping that my work along with other tribal artists will correct that and put us into Some of these books I Did a book on our designs Had really intended to start out make a book I was doing the research for myself And as we got recognized a publisher approached Vera Longtoe She and and asked if they knew She knew what I was working on and we went from there and the book became a book I Was thinking I was going to put it into a notebook and give it to chief to put on the shelf somewhere But it turned into a real book not a hot seller And I'm very grateful about that. I also go out and do Talks and today was A very exciting day because I did the talks in tall and Connecticut and other places But this particular gentleman walked up to me and he said I recognize you and I said, yeah, you look familiar Where do I know you from and he said I went to your genealogy talk in Tallinn at the French genealogy library And I'm now part of the Nullhagen band and I was like Yes Someone actually followed through and was successful because so many natives Are there their tribal roles are closed or treaties say they can't accept me on a blood quantum We do it by relationship And Even though we have different bands We're all related One way or another You'll see somebody go around and say that's my cousin. Well, they might be from the missuscoy And the and the other person is is Nullhagen We're still amnest and We consider each other sisters and brothers Our cousins But it's really interesting that uh right now They're doing some work to build a Core tree, I guess you would call it and that is looking for early families And seeing where they branch off to And this is great. I'm finding out I have some more avid actors that I escaped me from When I was doing my research. I really thought they were French I didn't go far enough in my own research So I have some more avid acting in there And it's interesting how many of us share certain ancestors so this this making of a core tree Is going to be a really really good thing I know the missuscoy we're trying to do that years ago. I don't know if they ever pursued it You get back to the most earliest families you can and then follow those How they leaf out then Then you can see how we're all related On the French side, uh, they were 15 settlers who came in to come back Montreal And I was related to over half of them Yeah, it was really cool. I'm like I'm early early on everybody's side It's terrific Well, we have so much to learn from the work that you've done and to visually see The stories come alive in in your artwork is so beautiful. Jeannie. It's Really wonderful to to see it here on heritage weekend Um Is there anything else you'd like our viewers to know about genealogy and how that really shapes um Your walk through life As it affirms who you are again and again A good example is like I said my sister and I are half sisters We never think of it that way because there's just two of us But she never got to follow up on her dad and I think Mom and he split when she was around five or six and while she has some memories There aren't that many that are accurate. Unfortunately, whether he didn't Tell my sister my mom all the truth Or my mom got it confused or my sister got it confused. I don't know But I've taken on trying to do history of genealogy To try to give her some peace of mind because the difference between us is I've been very successful because I am rooted And my sister and her family Have health problems A lot of depression Uh, and I think it comes out of that mysterious this Lack of rootedness And I've seen this in other people When I when I saw what was happening with immigration With very young children. I became barren I was very sick when after my daughter's birth I had to be away from very long time And my daughter was a newborn and my son was three years old And it's been a very long time For them to get their feet under them So yeah having roots having good beginnings and having good roots Makes a huge difference in a person's life. Yeah, I really believe that And I'll take this opportunity because again Our current administration is is attempting to Designate all Indians as a race as opposed to a culture and society and sovereign nations And I hope that does not happen And it means a loss of land for those who have reservations It means a loss I know you're people thinking you probably continue the culture, but that's like saying people in America who are from Italy or spain or whatever can consider Can continue their culture. They can only do it to a point I mean, we've lost a lot because we've lost our land and we're very connected to the land and water and air but To lose Our designation as people It's a nightmare a lot of it is an utter nightmare And it would mean people will say, oh well, you know, well, no because The lands will be sold so they will not be recoverable any mining or Other resources that are taken from the land can never be put back And all of this is a disturbance We're seeing we're seeing fish dying birds dying We're seeing land being contaminated so it can't be used for grazing or for food planting And at what point are we going to realize we're not going to be able to feed ourselves We have companies like Nestle buying up water and reselling it to the people they're getting it from Uh, I saw a science fiction movie where this happened and I thought Really? Well Not science fiction anymore it's happening So many places have contaminated water not even suitable for taking a bath or doing laundry When we say the earth is our mother think about what a good mother does she takes care of you She nourishes you she keeps you warm. She keeps you shelter And that's what mother earth does She's the one that's here that tells about your dad And that character that raccoon character. Could you tell us about that raccoon and What is his abnaki name? The raccoon's abnaki name is Aspan And he's a big trickster. He tricks all the other animals My favorite chapter is chapter three Well, why is that your favorite? To me it just seems like it's the most funny What is chapter three about? The title of chapter three is aspan's honey dance Where he tricks awasus the bear Yeah, it's one of the funniest cranks he does He tricks a bear That does sound funny Sure, uh, my name is Brian Shenevert. I am a member of the nohiyan abnaki tribe What you've seen and what my son Nathan has talked about is my first book aspan's great journey And that is a story of aspan the raccoon who is like he eloquently put our trickster And he travels up and down the connecticut river playing pranks on all the other animals and vice versa Became a storyteller just I guess by nature of being a father And passing those stories on to my children who I had learned from my father And my children I have two other daughters who aren't here today They're the ones who actually talk me into putting those stories into a book format so that they could be shared with others And I'm currently I just finished my second book which hopefully will be published by the end of the summer which is the origin story of lacrosse For new england all of us new england tribes mostly the abnaki and how the game came to be and its importance to us It sounds so fascinating Good for you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. I can't wait to see Talk to you more about that when we when we definitely when it's published Yeah, I was hoping to have some here today But I guess some author copies available, but they weren't able to print them in time. It's kind of a last minute Yeah, yeah, um, do you have any other intertribal activities that you're doing this summer? I know you like to do canoeing and And uh other activities like that. Yes So I know too that I'll be involved in is We'll be canoeing the connecticut river again At some point this summer and then also in october every year is the Deer island memorial paddle, which is a canoe journey from deer island in boston harbour Into natik massachusetts, which is a reverse of the path when The knit muck were rounded up and sent to deer island Basically almost an internment camp During the king philips war. So it's a memorial to remember them and it's basically bringing them home coming from the island back to natik And you'll be I'll be paddling is that as well. Yep. That's an interesting one because it's in the open ocean Yeah a little more an october and it's in october where it's usually rainy Yeah, so yeah, did the youth participate as well? Not in that one just because of the risk with being in the open ocean There's a lot of youth back when we get back. There's a big potluck and Gathering and storytelling so they're usually there but usually the youth are involved in the connecticut river paddle But not in the the open ocean That sounds so exciting. Thank you for sharing about those events. Sure. Thank you. Thank you for giving us a voice Yeah, have a have a wonderful time Thank you Hi, I'm amy cook terry in and I'm part of the cow suck of the koas avanaki tribe And I do contemporary painting I do watercolor paintings With some pen and ink work And I see that you've been doing a lot of birch trees And kind of almost like a study of the birch and the birch bark Could you tell what the significance of the the birch tree might be to you as an indigenous woman? So I have an obsession with birch trees and dead beach leaves And um, it's just because every single one is different. Um, and I just love that Each one has a personality and um, especially in the wintertime when they just are standing alone and just surrounded by white But then, you know, the blue of the sky and then The pop of you know, their bark and like the peach tones that they get So I'm just really drawn to it and they're just they're so peaceful. Um, and of course Being native birches used for many different things from making baskets to making canoes Even if you find the bark on the ground, it's perfect for Starting fires and you know, so it's just it's a really it's a really great Tree to have around and I'm just I like to Go out and explore and paint what I'm seeing at the time. So if it's um If I see all this white from winter and then I come upon a beach tree With the leaves still clinging You know, it's just it's they're so beautiful and so I have to paint them To capture them and so and I do that with anything anything to capture my attention And especially if they have Little imperfections those are always my favorite. So I'm right now. I'm following the season So I'm really excited for fall this year because I I really have some fun ideas that I want to Do and hopefully give some different colors So Amy tell us where people can find you if they're interested in seeing More of your art. So I am on facebook Um, you can look me up at Amy hook terry and watercolor artist and I also have an instagram It's um hook terry and art and then I am also at a couple different galleries Around the state. So I'm a creative space gallery in virgins. I am in artisans gallery in wakesfield and at rocker brewery in Morrisville Thank you so much for sharing Because I mean you can pound rings off of lots of different trees five years ago And that was just weaving the baskets. We did a three-year apprenticeship with master basket maker jenny brink Who also happens to be a cousin down nice got a grant from the remount folk life center to study under her And that covered materials and teachers fees and from there that was uh Right around the time when the emerald ash borer was really I mean pretty much the end game in most of the states that produced a lot of the splints commercial Wisconsin now starting here. So we couldn't find it anywhere. And so we had to Go and get it ourselves and that really got me into the materials preparation into things Which thank goodness because uh, you know spending Three dollars for linear foot Of this stuff is just not Look at that. That is just pretty And this is what we moved with It is flexible. It's shiny It's beautiful. You can strip it down to the right width Really easy Wow And now you've seen it wouldn't ribbon Was this harvested in fetford this was harvested in fetford. All right. Yes. I knew you were there And it's super flexible don't try to break it I mean this looks like a Some sweetgrass basket right here that is some sweetgrass basket. Wow Can you tell us about it? Certainly. I think you Know how we get to the splint. So what I'm doing right now is actually Aaron has pounded and gotten it ready And I'm shaving it down and smoothing it out and I've already gauged it with We have different size gauges That are different widths And so we run the splint once it's been off the log We run it down the gauge and it gives us the width that we want So when we make a basket We have some symmetry between the different splints and it can help it come up so that it doesn't end up being High on one side and low on another And then we use this splint for the upright. I don't know. This is one that I'm just beginning here So we've made the base And then we use the splint for the upright and then you can either use the splints for around like this basket shows Or you can use sweetgrass and use that to weave with and it just has a different look It's so beautiful. It's uh It's got a I don't know. There's a neat sheen to it and it's very beautiful Yeah And the patterns are just a little bit different. It looks finer and So you can see the top of this we use sweetgrass to get started on the top Oh, yeah, which is also on the top of the bells that are here And unfortunately over time the green does turn to a brown But it tends to keep a little bit of the sheen And if you spritz it with a really light mist a couple times a year It will also keep that wonderful sweet smell that we've all come to love with sweetgrass Does it have personal significance to you as a woman an indigenous woman in the sweetgrass? It certainly does. Wegrass is considered um the hero of mother earth And it is very important in our culture Um and for me to be able to use both the ash also has significance Because that is part of our creation story as well Um because Gaby's shot an arrow into an ashtray and out of it came white and brown and red and yellow people So to be able to make something Out of a out of living beings and then make it into something new that can be used in treasure for a long time to come It has special meaning It connects me to my roots and also because this is how my ancestors made a living Um both recently and in the distant past it is able to kind of connect me to them And I feel complete when I'm working on baskets So it's it's been wonderful. Yeah. Yeah And uh you you finished your apprenticeship with your cousin. We did yeah So air and I were fortunate me to do a three year apprenticeship with genie. Who's a master basket maker in we were I think um put up to 25th Apprentice so she has taught 25 abnakis over the last probably 15 to 20 years how to make baskets, which is just Amazing because when she first learned she had to go to odonak There was no one in vermont that we know of that were making traditional abnaki baskets So it's quite a legacy that she's been able to leave um and that we hope to carry on And it was quite an honoring at middlebury college recently you attended that um Honoring for genie. Just tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, so that was just absolutely wonderful And I and something certainly well deserved for genie middlebury college Honored her with an honorary doctorate of the arts um at their graduation ceremony on um Memorial Day weekend and it was just wonderful because what they were really honoring was her impact Um for the vermont communities and helping people recognize that the abnaki people are still alive and well And integrated in the community and her work that she's really done over the last 20 to 40 years Um sharing the history Helping us understand not only the basketry and the native crafts, but um the history of the people The history of colonialism and the impact that had on the indigenous populations Um and that really people I think like genie and her generation planted the seeds So that my generation and my son's generation can be able to really kind of reclaim our heritage And our culture continue learning more about it Um and share that now with the community at large Um and when genie started her education and process that was at a time that many of the abnaki were still underground Um because of the difficult history that we had in the early 1900s So it really feel that that she laid that foundation So that we can be here today Having abnaki heritage days And we have more and more people coming every single year who are abnaki and are kind of Recognizing they want to learn and grow and we claim that heritage so that it's not lost Beautiful it's such a beautiful story And I really appreciate the Different shapes that you keep coming up with some of them look modern Some of them are very traditional in their shapes and uh, so good for you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Anything else you would like our viewers to Know about your work your business name and where they can reach you You certainly I do have an etsy account But I don't have a whole lot on it because I'm really finding that because baskets are really personal That it does better if I make to order and I can really talk with people and get a sense of what it is If they're looking for do they want the traditional do they want a utilitarian basket? So I'm I'm really kind of going one more make to order versus Just out there. Um, but anyone can reach me at my email address Which is k.r. Wood at gmail k.r. Wood vermont at gmail.com And I'm also on facebook so Thank you. Thank you Hi, I'm Diane Stevens. I'm a photographer I'm with the Nelkegan tribe And this is my artwork from all different areas from Africa from Peru from from all over Vermont minus So I hope you enjoy the pictures. I hope you'll come to the show and enjoy it Also find my pictures at www.dianstevensphotography.com Take it to the website The pieces is a bias weave necklace that I made And bias weave means flat so Are you actually working like Kind of on an angle when you're weaving? Yes And it also this is nine rows So I use nine needles at a time And they're about eight feet long the string so Nine needles and eight feet strong. They need long string Gets a little tangled sometimes But you do one bead at a time A few weeks to do this But I enjoy it and I love doing this. Really beautiful. Thank you You've been doing quite a variety of things with wampum Could you tell us a little bit about how you feel about using wampum? Shell And you can do all kinds of amazing things with it And this is very important to me You find a shell this color Which is amazing because normally you would find white with a little bit of purple When you find a shell like this, this is my gold my diamonds That's what I tell everybody And it's just natural like this. It's amazing so And so I do Otherwise it cracks and shatters For example my owl. I do real co-hog shell wampum But I'm good at it yet, but I'm getting there So that would be you make the bead each wampum bead separately. Yes You