Lottie Stamper

Lottie Queen Stamper (1907-1987) is one of Cherokee's best-known basket weavers. In this photograph, made for the Indian Arts and Craft Board, Stamper is shown making a rivercane basket in the double weave technique. A double weave basket is really two baskets, one inside the other. The basket weaver begins at the base of the inside basket, working upward to the rim where the cane is bent downward; the outside is woven from top to base. Stamper has finished working the basket upward and has turned it upside down on her lap to finish it at its base. The basket has been dyed to create dark circular bands around its outside. At right, over her shoulder, are cut lengths of rivercane ready for weaving. Born in the Soco community to Levi and Mary Queen, Lottie Queen first learned how to make white oak and pine needle baskets from her mother. She married into a family that taught her how to make baskets from rivercane. In 1935, at the age of 28, she started making cane baskets