“the stories come alive in it”: Renewing lakotowakən in the Waponahki homelands

“the stories come alive in it”: Renewing lakotowakən in the Waponahki homelands

In the early summer of 2024, the Wolastoqewi Elder and traditional artist Gina Brooks invited the literary scholar Rachel Bryant to make paper from a lichen commonly known as old man’s beard. Gina wanted the paper to line the lid of a nineteenth-century Waponahki basket that she was restoring after receiving it as a gift from Rachel. And she wanted to share this basket with public audiences: first, with the audience of an imminent keynote addres…