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Annie Burke’s Revolutionary Preservation of Pomo Basketry
The Southern Pomo and Western Wappo peoples made the world’s finest baskets along the Russian River.
For thousands of years, they wove with sedge roots and willow shoots, using more techniques than any culture in history. Some baskets held water, while others gleamed with woodpecker feathers—up to 50 per inch.
Yet a strict rule put this art at risk: when a weaver died, their baskets had to burn or be buried with them. Then in the 1960s, Annie Burke broke this rule…