Amanda Smoker

Amanda Smoker

Basket makers

Basket making

Cherokee baskets

Cherokee women

Handicraft

Manners and customs

In this 1986 photograph, Cherokee basket weaver Amanda Elaine Smoker (1916-2010) is finishing off the rim of a white oak basket. This photograph is from a series that documents white oak basket weaving by Smoker, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Smoker lived all of her life in Snowbird, a Cherokee community located 50 miles west of the Qualla Boundary, in Graham County, North Carolina. Learning to make baskets from her mother, she made white oak baskets and dyed with natural dyes. She produced baskets until the 1980s, when her health prevented her from weaving. She attended local schools and was an avid reader. She was photographed here as part of the Fading Voices, a project that included oral histories and photographs.

Unknown

Archive Collection

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

1986

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

jpg

photographs

StillImage

10946

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/10946

2009-06-22

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Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

7" x 5"(dimension)

Cherokee Traditions