The Basketmaker

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The old woman gave the young woman a basket upon her marriage. Each time the young woman visited the old woman she would delight in the smell of the long needle pine. She would admire the old woman who though despite her failing eyesight and time-worn aching fingers and hands still continued to weave. In an old dwelling lay strewn about baskets of many shapes and sizes the old woman had completed. About the floor of the dwelling lay long needle pine drying. The young woman saw the pine as a beautiful mat as beautiful as the forest floor where she often sought refuge. As the years want by the old woman grew weaker and weaker until one day when she just passed on to the other side. Family and friends came together to see her for the last on this earth. The young woman knelt close to the old woman�s body. The young woman could not move. She felt the old woman�s spirit embrace her once again. The young woman told no one until she returned home. The young woman spoke with another woman so wise who reassured her of what had happened. It was but a few months and the young woman herself began to weave baskets from sundown to sunrise. You see the time she knelt close to the old woman�s lifeless body the old woman�s spirit passed to her the gift of basketmaker. This is how the young woman learned to make baskets.

Michael R. Pierite and Jean-Luc Pierite.