Billie Higheagle, Chehalis Tribe, is recognized as a master weaver and says of her upbringing – “I’m Chehalis/Skokomish and influenced by two rich weaving traditions. I often visited Louisa Pulsifer and watched her process sweetgrass and cattail. My kiyah – Hazel Pete also wove with sweetgrass and cattail. That has come to be my first choice when weaving and teaching.” Typically, Billie gathers, processes, and sorts basketry materials during the early summer and into the fall (sweetgrass, cattail, cedar, nettle, pine needle, and cedar roots). She follows the protocol of Grandmother Hazel Pete staying with one technique for 6 weeks or so and then moves to another technique and material: coil, weaving, mats, decorative hair pieces, regalia, and pouches.
Billie (Yai Yas) is known for her weaving of sweetgrass and cattail in a cone basket. The cone basket is woven in varying sizes and used as storage for digging, drying, and then storing camas. Cone baskets are hung from the ceiling, so the camas stays dry. She digs camas on the Chehalis Reservation at Oakville, gathers sweetgrass at the mud flats down at the harbor, cuts cattail where standing water allows them to flourish, and then weaves cone baskets to have them ready each season. Three of her cone baskets were selected and featured at The Evergreen State College Longhouse 20th anniversary exhibition – Sqwigwiqlt@20: Building upon the Past, Visioning into the Future.
Statement:
I weave because it is a passion – I especially like to weave with sweetgrass and cedar making small items (earrings, woven hair pieces, and pendants). Because I learned with Kiyah Hazel Pete, I often weave the large items she taught me (cedar back packs, traditional cedar hats, and large cedar baskets) I do this because I am tasked as a master weaver to teach younger weavers, so the art of basketry continues. Kiyah said often – you are not a weaver if you do not gather, process, and prep basketry materials – from spring through the fall months, that’s where you’ll find me, gathering and processing my materials. In the foothills around the Chehalis Reservation while gathering cedar, I can make a quick basket for carrying things back to our camp. This past summer I made a cedar bark quiver to put devil’s club in – something useful, quick, and something I can teach my granddaughter while we’re passing time pulling cedar.
