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WCU - Cherokee Traditions

Rowena Bradley

  • wcu_cherokee_traditions-598.jp2
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  • This undated Indian Arts and Crafts Board photograph shows Rowena Bradley preparing to work on a rivercane basket. On the ground beside her is a pile of rivercane, already cut and split. Born in the Swimmer Branch Community of the Qualla Boundary, as a child Rowena Bradley (1922-2003) learned to weave baskets by watching her mother, Nancy George Bradley (1881-1963). Later, her mother taught her the complex double weave technique. A third generation basket weaver, both her grandmother, Mary Dobson, and her mother, Nancy George Bradley, were accomplished basket makers. Basketmaking was a family tradition; her father, Henry Bradley gathered rivercane and dug roots for dye materials. Photograph is labeled, "Rowena Bradley a Cherokee Indian Rivercane Basket Maker from the Big Y Community Cherokee Indian Reservation. Cherokee, N.C."

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Cherokee Traditions

Cherokee Traditions: From the Hands of Our Elders is a database of Cherokee art forms, historic photographs, and native language recordings. The images reproduced here are primarily from t...

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wcu_cherokee_traditions-598.jp2