Wayapetemahquah Choke stayed in the Chehalis village at Oakville, Washington and was taught by her mother Hazel Pete to work with all types of basketry and materials. Hazel Pete was resourceful and many times used scrappy materials to weave remarkable showcase baskets and that was the way Wayapetemahquah was taught. Many times, Wayapetemahquah expected to use the prepped materials she spent weeks organizing and her mother would say – “No – use the scraps from the floor – don’t waste.” So, began a lifelong routine for her – always picking up and organizing down to the last scrap.
The sweetgrass woven bottle was an attempt to learn how to shape basketry materials and Hazel Pete had her weave around bottles. Wayapetemahquah has said about this bottle in particular “It was a heavy thing and sometimes became a door stop, a wight for important papers, and one time while I was away from home at the 4th of July, my boys filled it with rocks and used it to light off bottle rockets! It broke the top and I added the rose to cover the damage. The bottle survived a house fire in 2012 – I’m lucky to have been able to save mom’s baskets, drums, textile weavings, and photos. Fires and floods are natural disasters that have destroyed basketry collections.”
Wayapetemahquah sat with her mom to make one and only one triple-walled basket. She said of this basket “Too many things to keep track of and the bear grass can be sharp – not the easiest to weave. Each strand of bear grass must be scraped and then pulled through a stripper to make the length uniform; it requires patience. I’m glad my mom spent the week guiding my hands to complete this basket.”
