Wa-nu-ken Showcase
More detailed information about who we are and what we do.
Of quillwork Michael says:
"I have been working in porcupine quills since 1998. . I was working on a project to reconstruct and furnish a 17th century Seneca Bark Longhouse and couldn’t find any Native people making woodland quilled pieces. Since then, I have made 17th and 18th century reproductions for museums, historic sites, and private collectors.
I make quilled knife sheathes, tab pouches, slit pouches, hair ornaments, powderhorn straps, bandoleer bags, woodland moccasins, strike-a-lite bags, belts, pipestems, bracelets, feather strips, and bags of any style. I know over 30 quillwork techniques as well as natural dye methods. My quillwork is done on handmade smoked braintanned leather and if need be stained dark brown with walnut hulls. I am a closet bibliophile and have amassed a large collection of books and ephemera relating to woodland material culture and have logged hundreds of hours in museum collections studying ethnographic pieces. I have taught quillwork at the Seneca-Iroquois Museum in Salamanca NY, the Akwesasne Museum in Akwesasne NY, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Oneida Nation Arts Program in Oneida WI, and Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor NY."
On Basketry:
"Tonia and I work together on baskets. We work mainly in reproducing older styles of baskets leaving the “fancy” baskets to other weavers. We harvest the ash log, pound splints, cut and clean the splints, cut the hickory log, split out staves for rims, carve rimstock and handles, steam-bend the rims and handles, and weave the basket. It takes many hours of hard physical labor to produce the materials needed for baskets but it is all worth it when you work from tree to basket. Call us for details and availability of baskets.
We also work with elm bark. Once prolific in the area elm is now a rarity. Springtime is when we make elm bark baskets. We harvest only one elm per year to insure the trees survival. That makes this style of basketry exceptionally rare. We make sap buckets, spoons, ladles, bowls, trays, quivers, barrels, and storage bins from elm with hickory rims sewn with split elm bark cordage. I also work in birch bark but only to make arrow quivers or knife sheath lining."
On
Weaving and Cordage:
"Natural cordage has been an interest of mine ever since I saw a 300-yard long 4-foot high rabbit net from the Great Basin. All hand made from dogbane or Indian hemp the net must have taken thousands of hours to make. A Filipino friend taught the secret of cordage making to me over 7 years ago and now I have used that knowledge to recreate woodland fiber bags, cords, prisoner ties, tumplines, carrying nets, fishing nets, pack frames, slings, and tobacco bottles. I use many varieties of natural plants to make cordage fiber, basswood bark, hickory bark, elm bark, spruce roots, dogbane, stinging nettle, cattail, cornhusk, sinew, and rawhide. "
On Native Music:
"I sing both contemporary pow-wow songs and also aid the Young Spirit Dancers by singing Haudenosaunee Social Dance songs. I have been making indigenous instruments for singers and performers for over 10 years. I started out making eight-sided Paiute style hand drums popularized by hand game players in Nevada. Then I was instructed in the making a pow-wow drum in 1993. And after making that drum I have made over 100 drums of different styles and shapes for singers and ceremony. My grandfather even blessed my drummaking one surprising afternoon in 1994.
I now specialize in making the water drum used by Haudenosaunee singing society leaders. I also make steer horn rattles, gourd rattles, elm and hickory bark rattles, rawhide Paiute rattles, and snapping turtle rattles. I can also make an unusual instrument called a bullroar. It is swung by a string, making a low buzz like approaching thunder. The Paiute “indian doctors” used it to bring about rain and to help a patient. Paiute children played with them also as toys. I can also make whistles from animal and bird bones as well as flutes from bone or river cane. Tonia has also reproduced the rare basketry rattle almost extinct today."