Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1997–1998
Native American Star Quilts:
Edna Mae Johnson and Karen Wahwasuck
Anumber of elements of Native American culture
combine in the tradition of the star quilt. Although
quilts were obviously incorporated into Indian culture
after contact with Europeans, and the star quilt design
in particular seems to have come to the Great Basin from
the Plains tribes, the tradition of hand crafts, the love of
colors and textures, and the incorporation of quilts into
the social structure are all aspects of Nevada’s indigenous
culture that blend well with this non-indigenous craft.
Edna Mae
Johnson of Reno
recalls seeing
star quilts in
Montana over
20 years ago and
i m m e d i a t e l y
wanting to learn
how they were
made. With the
help of her sister
and a book that
provided a blank
star design she
could color in,
she taught herself
how to quilt,
and has been at
it ever since. She
can piece a simple
star without a pattern now, she’s done it so often,
but for more complicated designs like eagles, war bonnets,
or teepees she still draws it out ahead of time. The
eight-pointed stars are made up of diamond-shaped
fabric pieces, with the colors radiating out from the
center in rings of graduated light and dark fabric.
Karen Wahwasuck, Edna’s apprentice, was an expert
bead worker and seamstress, but had had previous
difficulty trying to make a star quilt. “I did make one a
long time ago, and it came out awful,” she laughs. “It
came out with five points, and it looked like a Chinese
hat in the middle. I couldn’t get it to lie down right.
Me, I have trouble comprehending reading out of a
book, and I couldn’t understand it. I need somebody
to show me how to do it, because if somebody shows
me how to do something instead of telling me, I can do
it. So anyway, I showed Edna that one I’d made, and
she told me what I was doing wrong. My diamonds in
the first place weren’t even all the right sizes, they were
all different sizes, and I didn’t pay attention to where I
sewed. So anyway, I finally got it. Got it now.
The concept of sharing and giving away things is
very strong in Native American cultures. The first basket
a person makes, for example, is supposed to be given
away, and quilts and other hand-crafted items are valued
gifts for ceremonies called give-aways. These are held
to honor community
members
for various
reasons. Usually
the person
or people being
honored
are the ones
doing the giving
of gifts; for
instance, after
someone dies,
their family
will give gifts
to those who
Edna Mae Johnson and
Karen Wahwasuck hold one of
Edna’s star quilts.
have helped
them in their
time of trouble.
“The main reason
I wanted
to learn how
to make quilts
was because of,
like Edna does,”
Karen explains. “Edna makes a lot of quilts for giveaways
and memorials and stuff like that. She’s really
helped us, because one of the grandpas died two years
ago, and we had a memorial for him and she made a lot
of the quilts, and that’s when I decided I wanted to try,
I wanted to learn how to make a quilt. Because when he
passed away, we needed to have something to give away
for all the people who helped us. It’s better to make it
than to buy it, ‘cause your time is really important, so
when you honor somebody it’s better that it’s made by
you or your family member. It’s more important that
way. So that was the main reason why I wanted to learn
to make quilts.”
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