Lesage Family

Basket made by Mrs. Lesage.

Volney Jones interviewed Mrs. Lesage, her son, and daughter to learn about how families in Garden River made Black Ash baskets. They told him how each family member contributed to the basketry process, which Jones described in his field notes:  

The son gathers material, pounds the logs and does other heavy work. The daughter prepares the splints and trims them, while the mother, who is an excellent basket-maker, does the basket weaving.

He observed Mrs. Lesage and her daughter prepare splints to make a basket and acquired this basket from them.

Mrs. Lesage told him that she had been interviewed for a magazine article two years before but did not know if the article had been published. She also told him that she had been part of the Hiawatha pageants in northern Michigan and had traveled with the Hiawatha cast to Europe.

To learn more about the Hiawatha pageants, check out:

• Myth Making, a panel in the University of Michigan Clements Library online exhibit "No, not even for a picture."  
• The Indian Passion Play by Michael D. McNally, which includes a discussion about the role of the Garden River community in creating and performing these pageants.