Distinctly Dutch - New York State Museum

In 2006, the New York State
Museum commissioned a
basket from a Mohawk family
from Akwesasne. A year later,
soon after I joined the Museum,
the Anthropology Department
was abuzz one day with the
basket’s arrival, and I was introduced
to a gracefully wrought
Benedict “Globe Basket,” in all
the newness of its natural colors
of black ash and sweetgrass, and
the latter’s distinctive fragrance.
Once examined, named, catalogued,
measured, and technically
described for entry in the
Museum’s electronic database,
this gem became a part of the
Museum’s Ethnology Collection/
Governor’s Collection of
Contemporary Native American
Art, to await future study and
exhibitions. As an ethnographer,
an anthropologist who studies
contemporary cultures from
cultural insiders’ and scholarly
viewpoints, usually including
original field research, I was
eager to conduct my first fieldwork
with the Benedict family.
From my initial in-depth ethnographic
interview with them in
March 2008, through subsequent
follow-up inquiries over the next
year, I would explore with the
Benedicts the making—contexts,
meanings, and particular story—
of this basket, its relation to
earlier, stylistically very different
Mohawk baskets, and their own
lives as its makers.
Meeting the Benedicts
Just entering the Akwesasne
Mohawk community and then
reaching the home of the Ernest
Benedict family, on Cornwall
Island (Kawehnoke), Ontario, in
the middle of the St. Lawrence
River, is a lesson in Mohawk,
U.S., and international history,
politics, and culture. Akwesasne
(“land where the partridge
drums”) is the Mohawk name
for the now-drowned rapids
at this place in the mighty
St. Lawrence when it still ran
free, reverberating with a sound
reminiscent of the partridge’s
drumming call. It is a Mohawk
community that pre-dates both
the United States and Canada,
first split by those two powers
in 1783 at the point where the
provinces of Ontario and Quebec
and St. Lawrence and Franklin
counties now converge. Yet,
culturally and in daily life for the
Mohawk people, Akwesasne
remains seemless as Native
Nation and social community.
The Benedict family, though its
members might modestly beg to
differ, saying they simply live by
Mohawk ways, holds a critical
place in modern Mohawk history,
politics, and cultural revitalization
(see page 15, For Further Reading).
Florence Katsitsienhawi
Benedict (trans., “she carries
flowers”), born in 1931, who
like the central globe in the
Globe Basket, is the heart of this
traditional matrilineal Mohawk
family. She is a lifelong community
worker, as well as a stellar
and widely recognized basket
maker, and granddaughter of a
Wolf Clan Mother. At 78, she
continues as a basketry instructor
and supervises interns in the
Akwesasne Museum’s crafts
revitalization programs. Ernest
Kaientaronkwen Benedict (“he
gathers the small sticks of wood
as in the ceremonial game”),
born in 1918, is the eminent
Mohawk intellectual, activist,
early leader in Native-controlled
education reform, professor,
spiritual leader, and
condoled Mohawk Life Chief
(Rotinonkwiseres). He is founder
of the North American Indian
Traveling College (now Native
North American Traveling
College and Ronathahonni
Cultural Center) and the noted
Indian Country activist news
journal, Akwesasne Notes.
During one visit by Pope John
Paul II to Canada, he was chosen
to present the sacred eagle
The Benedict family followed traditional Mohawk kinship and collective work patterns when
they joined together to produce the Globe Basket commissioned by the State Museum. Left to
right: Rebecca, Salli, Ernie, Florence, and Luz. Photo by Dr. Betty J. Duggan, 2008.
Curator of Ethnography
and Ethnology Dr. Betty
J. Duggan joined the
New York State Museum
in 2007. She is the first
to hold this recently
created position.
Dr. Duggan received a
Ph.D. in anthropology from
the University of Tennessee
and a graduate certificate
in museum studies from
Harvard University. Her
research, and more than
60 professional publications,
focus on North
American Indians, material
culture, folklife, applied
ethnography, anthropology
in museums, and cultural
tourism. She was Hrdy
Visiting Research Curator
at Harvard’s Peabody
Museum of Archaeology
and Ethnology during
1999–2000 and a visiting
professor and research
associate for Wake Forest
University from 2003 to
2005. From 1983 to 2004,
she directed and/or curated
more than two dozen
grant-, university-, and
tribal-funded collaborativeresearch
exhibitions and
community projects in
Tennessee, North Carolina,
Mississippi, and Georgia.
She is a guest editor for
Practicing Anthropology
in 2010.
At the State Museum,
she negotiated a new
Native American Advisory
Committee (NAAC), with
formal representatives from
ten Native Nations, with
whom she now partners to
plan and research new historic
through contemporary
exhibits for the renewed
Native Peoples Gallery
(slated for 2012).
Summer 2009 n 13