MAY 23, 1999

MOHAWK BASKET WEAVER KAWENNATAKIE (MARY ADAMS) DIED

Adams, whose Mohawk name meant “Approaching Voice,” was born on the Akwesasne Reserve, Cornwall Island, Ontario, on January 24, 1917. Her mother died when Mary was 10 and her father left to do ironwork. Having learned from her mother how to weave baskets, Mary initially wove to support herself and her brother. After marrying at 17, she wove to feed her twelve children. As her baskets gained notoriety and she attained financial freedom, Mary taught basket weaving on the Reserve and traveled to lecture on basketmaking. A Catholic, in 1980, she presented Pope John Paul II with a basket made to honor the beatification of now St. Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman known as the “Lily of the Mohawks.” Mary produced more than 25,000 baskets. Her work is in permanent collections of the Iroquois Indian Museum, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, New York State Governor’s Collection of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian. Adams died in Snye, Quebec.

Source:  "Mary Kawennatakie Adams," Smithsonian American Art Museum.  Retrieved 6/5/2019, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/mary-adams-26

Photo:  Mary Kawennatakie Adams, Basket, 1985, sweetgrass.  Courtesy, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.67A-B.  Retrieved 5/21/2020, https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/basket-31571