Wal’ceckwu (pronounced wel-chatko), also known as Marion Dixon, was my teacher at basketry workshops organized by the late Irene Bjerky at the Yale Historic Site in the mid-2000S.4
Marion is an Nlaka’pamux woman and one of the few remaining makers skilled in the art and craft of coiled cedar-root basketry. We workshop participants were awed by her skill and dexterity, her generosity in passing on her knowledge, and overwhelmed by the thought of the hard work that she and her sons had done to collect and process the materials she had for us at the workshop. I thank Marion for the time she gave me at the workshops, in subsequent conversations at her home, just outside Hope, and in the phone conversations that rounded out this article.
Marion is descended from a long line of fine basket makers, including her mother, Lena Johnny, her grandmother Annie Charlie, and her great-grandmother Anastasia Chapman. Baskets by these three women are in various museum collections including the Royal BC Museum, the Museum of
