ABSTRACT
June and I sang these words over and over again as we wove together and the camera zoomed in on the amazing Alutiiq-style basket she was working to finish. I had been hired to be a youth program evaluator for a native basket weaver exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s fortieth Annual Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC. 1 Yet, I found myself being invited to participate in what would become one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. June Simeonoff Pardue is a culture bearer and one of few remaining Alutiiq basketweavers. Volunteering 76 in the Alaska Native weavers’ tent, I found myself talking with June because we are both Alutiiq. After a few rounds of “Where is your family from?” and “Do you know so-and-so?” we found that we had some family members in common through our connections to Kodiak Island. She invited me to observe her and to practice weaving with some scraps of raffia while she worked with the rye grass collected on the shores of Alaska. I did not realize she would begin to teach me the songs she had been taught and stories about how she had learned to weave, or that we would be interviewed for a documentary about the event.
