Every year on The Mall in Washington, DC the Smithsonian Institution holds what they call the Folklife Festival. In an effort to bring different cultures together through music, traditional crafts, dance, and food they gather three disparate areas together so that people can come together to share their cultures with both one another and the American people.

This year's festival brought together a melting pot of craftspeople of many different backgrounds. Native weavers from all over North America participated in the Basketry demonstrations. With the advent of mass marketed containers there doesn't seem to be the practical need for handmade baskets anymore so a lot of the techniques have been lost. Patterns were sometimes copied from museum pieces to bring the native designs back to life as an art form.


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