For Angello Johnson, a young Mohawk basket maker and forestry technician, his craft brings honour and heartbreak.
For several summer months in 2018, Angello Johnson worked on a forest delimitation survey and trekked the 6,800 acres of woodlands managed by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Environment Division.
In every four-mile block, much of it wetland, he bushwhacked his way to stands of black ash trees and picked out a healthy-looking one. Then, he carefully and deliberately carved off a wide band from its circumference, a technique called girdling. Angello repeated the process 202 times across the territory, creating a network of trap trees that emitted distress phenols and alcohols that attracted the very thing that would kill them; the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). The trees were cut down later that winter and upon assessment, confirmed what the Tribe feared to be true: EAB was progressing across Akwesasne.
WESTERN INVASION
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when and how this destructive wood-boring beetle made its way onto North American soil from East Asia, but it was first detected in 2002 near Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Twenty years on, an estimated 8.7 billion of the continent’s ash trees are now infested by Agrilus planipennis, which kills 99 percent of the trees in its path.
Locally, EAB’s presence was confirmed in Cornwall in 2013, SDG in 2014, on Kawehno:ke (Cornwall Island) in 2015, and the southern portion of Akwesasne in 2017. The city and the counties, for their part, enacted management plans to mitigate the effects of the ash borer on urban areas and hardwood forests. But for Akwesasro:non, efforts to slow down this invasive insect took on a much larger significance: preserving black ash, Fraxinus nigra, meant upholding cultural expression, identity, and a way of life.
AN AKWESASNE TRADITION
Haudenosaunee people have been making, selling, and trading baskets made of black ash splints since the late 1700s. The original woven wares were utilitarian in nature and used for tasks such as fishing, hunting, corn washing, and gathering medicines. By the late 1800s, basketmakers were also producing “fancy” styles that incorporated sweetgrass and special weaves. Then, at the turn of the 19th century, there was a boom in Akwesasne in part thanks to a trading post in Saint Regis, which standardized basket styles and sizes, produced a catalog, and marketed the baskets.
Today, very few basketmakers exist within the Six Nations Confederacy. Akwesasne maintains the strongest numbers of people practicing this time-honoured art, including some renowned masters. For the Mohawks, basket-making has been—and continues to be—a cultural process and an artful expression of a reciprocal relationship with the land. Through harvesting, pounding, splint cleaning, and weaving, generational knowledge and traditions are passed on.
BEADWORK: Tammy King, Bee Creative Artist Studio; COLOURED SPLINTS: Carrie Hill, Chill Baskets; FLOWERS: Tiann White.
All photos by Tehoiatathe | Bear Clan Photography
THE BEGINNINGS OF A BASKETMAKER
Since the time he was 12, and more intensely during his late teens, Angello accompanied his uncle to drag logs out of the woods and “pound on them.”
Making splints—the thin strips of black ash used for weaving—is no easy feat. The tree must be selected and cut, and the bark stripped from it. Then it’s pounded with an axe head for eight hours a day, for about 7 to 10 days until all the thick splints separate along the tree’s annual growth rings. These thicker splints are subsequently split into thinner sections with a knife. The splints are finally smoothed, cut to size, and in some cases, dyed.
“I had to do all that work for about four years before [my uncle] showed me how to make a basket,” laughs Angello at the memory. “The old-timers, they really want to see that dedication and drive before they’ll invest their time and efforts in passing on all that knowledge.”
“For me, going through Á:se Tsi Tewá:ton was life-changing,” says Angello. “It gave me the time to really learn and appreciate traditional basketmaking.”
Part of the criteria for acceptance into the Á:se Tsi Tewá:ton was agreeing to pass on the knowledge to others and he is living up to his end of the bargain. Today, more than 10 years since Angello made his first basket, he works as a land-use technician for the Tribe. He also helms his own business, Good Mind Design, which produces splint baskets and gives culturally informed presentations on topics such as black ash tree identification, log pounding, and basketry.
“Two generations ago, you would hear logs being pounded at six in the morning across the reserve,” says Angello. “Through assimilation and residential schools, our culture was shunned and put on the backburner. Basketmaking is synonymous with the Mohawk people of Akwesasne and I’m proud to be part of a generation that’s working to bring it back strong again and passing it on. But the ash borer is really getting in the way of our efforts.”
What’s devastating to the fight against EAB is that the signs of infestation only really surface after five years. As larvae, the EAB eats away in a serpentine pattern at the outer bark layers of the black ash. By doing so, the supply of water and nutrients is completely cut off and the integrity of the tree becomes compromised. Trees start thinning at the crown, become more “blonde,” develop sprouts (called epicormic shoots) from the roots and trunk and garner more attention from woodpeckers. By this point, explains Angello, ”the tree is decimated and the log is unusable.”
THE SINISTER SPREAD
Angello’s passion for basketmaking dovetailed nicely with his experiences on the job with the Tribe. He had the opportunity to learn more about the very resources he relied on for his craft but it also opened his eyes to the losing battle against the EAB.
His tree girdling efforts contributed to a delimitation report that showed the extent and distribution of the beetle across the southern part of Akwesasne. A mitigation plan was put in place to at least slow the EAB’s spread.
“There is a doomsday clock ticking down for the black ash tree and it’s heartbreaking,” says Angello, now working as a land use technician with the Tribe. “We’re playing a chess game with the ash borer, and trying to predict where it’s going to move next so we can use those resources before they turn to splinters.”
Angello and his colleagues at the Environment Division know this is a losing battle. But they’re not giving up on the preservation of the black ash tree—or the future of basketmaking in Akwesasne—just yet. The team has been collecting seeds, and is working with the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, the National Seed Lab, and the Mid-Atlantic Seed Bank to place them in long-term cold storage so they can be planted in the future. Angello has also returned to the woods to practice silviculture, patiently “cutting out the competition and opening up the canopy a little” so that little black ash seedlings can thrive.
In addition to the seed saving, growth management, and close monitoring, the Tribe is also consulting with scientists from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study the viability of biocontrol measures. This would include the possible release of tiny, non-stinging wasps—Oobius agrili and Tetrastichus planipennisi—both natural enemies of the EAB that would help slow their spread.
Angello knows all these measures will only buy time. To him, all the efforts are worth it.
“Basketmaking is a wonderful way to live in balance with nature,” he says somewhat wistfully. “I wouldn’t be where I am without black ash trees.”
Follow Angello’s work at @goodminddesign on Facebook.
Special thanks to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Environment Division for their help with this piece.
Explore Mohawk Basketery with Master Basketmaker Carrie Hill (Chill Baskets) through a virtual tour with Airbnb’s Online Experiences.
