FAMED PAIUTE BASKET WEAVER CARRIE McGOWAN BETHEL DIED
Born in 1898 in Lee Vining, California, Carrie, a Mono Lake Paiute – Kucadikadi, began making baskets at age 12. She participated in basket making competitions in the Yosemite Indian Field Days in 1926 & 1929 and gave basket weaving demonstrations at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. Bethel was one of a group of Mono-Paiute women who were known for their “exceedingly fine, visually stunning and complex polychrome baskets.” She died in Lee Vining in 1974. In 2006, her basket that won first prize in the 1926 Yosemite Field Days basket competition sold at auction for $216,250. Four of her baskets were part of an exhibition on the art of Yosemite which appeared at the Autry National Center, the Oakland Museum of California, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art from 2006 to 2008.
Source: “Carrie Bethel,” World Biographical Encyclopedia, Prabook. Retrieved 5/13/2021, Carrie Bethel (1898 — 1974) | World Biographical Encyclopedia (prabook.com) Photo: Author unknown, circa 1929. Yosemite Museum, National Park Service. Likely Public Domain. If not Public Domain, then Fair Use.
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