Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1996–1997
Paiute Cradleboards:
Ivie Garfield and Sharon Barton
Achild living on the Ft. McDermitt Reservation in
north central Nevada and raised from her earliest
days in a willow cradleboard is already learning what it
means to be Paiute. She is protected by the buckskin
cover laced tight around her like a pair of sheltering
arms; she is surrounded by the elements of nature like
willow and hide that connect her to her place on the
earth; and she is a part of the human community as she
is carried where her parents go and propped up on a
sofa or against a tree in the midst of adult activity. Both
practically and symbolically, the cradleboard is central
to Native American identity in the Great Basin.
In her community of McDermitt, Ivie Garfield is acknowledged
as a master maker of cradleboards. She has
made them for all her children and grandchildren, as well
as for many other people in the area. Her mother and
grandmother were also artists in willow, and it was from
them that Ivie learned. The first basket a newborn gets is
boat shaped, and is used for about a month, traditionally
a time when mother and child lived in a small dwelling
outside the main house and saw no outsiders. Some
women still maintain this practice by staying in a separate
room in the house, and Ivie and her apprentice Sharon
Barton agree that this is easier on both mother and child
since they have few distractions. When the baby and
mother return to the main house after a month, the child
receives its full-size basket. It is made of small willow
sticks woven together with split willow
strings and attached to a long oval frame
of heavy willow. The board is covered
with a buckskin or canvas cover that
laces up the front to hold the child in.
At the top is a shade of very fine willows
woven together and decorated with a
pattern in yarn that tells whether the
baby is a girl or a boy. The shade keeps
light out of the baby’s eyes, it can protect
the child should the board tip over,
and a blanket can be draped over it when the baby sleeps.
Both Ivie and Sharon, who is her niece, were born in
McDermitt, which is a ranching community on the Oregon
border. Ivie has lived there for all of her 77 years.
During the apprenticeship they worked on identifying
and gathering the proper willows, cleaning and splitting
them, and weaving. Ivie also tans her own deer hides for
the covers, something Sharon hasn’t taken on yet. One
hide will cover one cradleboard, but Ivie has no set pattern
she uses. Rather, she fits the particular hide to the
frame, paying attention to the grain of the hide and the
way it stretches. Ivie says she can remember every person
she has made a cradleboard for; for the important
part she plays in introducing children to their Paiute
Heritage she is certain to be remembered as well.
Ivie Garfield with some of her cradleboards.
Ivie’s cradleboards
Cradleboard frames hanging in a
willow in Ivie’s yard.
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