Each year, First Peoples Fund honors and celebrates exceptional Native artists and culture bearers across the country through the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards.
These artists embody their People’s cultural assets in their creations and their way of life. Bringing spirit to the community is an important responsibility for artists — it is part of a sacred honor system.
“Ed Carriere, Suquamish Elder, Master Basketmaker and Canoe Carver, is considered by the Coast Salish communities in the Salish Sea and beyond, as one of the highest status Elders, traditional artisans, and cultural leaders of this region. He began mastering the old-style cedar limb/root clam basket making at 14, learning from his Great Grandmother, Julia Jacobs, who raised him from infancy. Julia was raised in a traditional cedar plank long-house, Old-Man House, until a teenager, learning all the early traditions. This is the same house that Chief Seattle, Sealth, lived in. Julia’s adoptive parents, Chief Wa-hal-chu and wife Wes-i-dult, took over Sealth’s leadership after his passing (Chief Wa-hal-chu signed the Treaty of Point Elliot with Chief Sealth in 1855). Chief Wa-hal-chu, his wife, and only child Julia were moved to their allotment in the Port Madison Indian Reservation, where Ed currently resides and maintains the remaining 80 acres of his Indian allotment (this allotment is thought to be the only one remaining under Indian ownership in Indianola, Washington).”
Ed Carriere was featured in a 2019 article in NBO’s Basketry+ magazine. Read the article here.