Native American Biography: Tanaya Winder, Duckwater Shoshone

 Tanaya Winder is enrolled in the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, although she grew up on the Southern Ute Tribe, San Ignacio, Colorado.  Her background is Southern Ute, Shoshone, Dine, Paiute and Black,  She is a poet, vocal performer, including performance poetry, school teacher and motivational speaker.  She has several songs on YouTube.  With Cassandra opez she founded As/Us, an online literary magazine to promote women writers.  She also helps manage Dream Warriors Management which promotes Native American artists.  She published a work of poetry, "Words of Love."  She attended Stanford and graduated in English with an emphasis in creative writing.  She has an MFA from University of New Mexico.  I discovered her in the book #Not Your Princess.  

As Indigenous women writers and artists we are continually trying to exist, live and love in a world that doesn't always show its love for us.  This means, part of the artist's caall is to turn past traumas on their head, upside down, inside out, lift it up then put it back down as something changed and transformed so that others can find something beautiful or hopeful in it.  For that beauty and hope to exist we as Native American women must dive headfirst into the muck, ugliness, stark darkness of that wreckage.  This is what we do--we recast wounds in unending light.  And so light, love, and courage are circles we keep coming back to.  Tanaya Winder (Duckwater Shoshone). (From the Book "#Not Your Princess: Voices of Native American Women.

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Ute Legend: The Basket Lady and the Man with the Hat

When working in Duckwater, I worked some with the school kids to physical education and other activities.  We presented the story of the Basket Lady and the Man with the Hat.  This was a Ute legend.  The story was a precautionary one about minding your manners and not being too loud.  Mom and grandma have to be away and tell the children that they should be good and not make too much noise or the Basket Lady will get them.  Of course they are too loud, and the woman with a basket gathers them all and puts them in the basket.  Apparently she is taking them home for a nice dinner.  However the man with the hat rescues them.  He tosses his hat at the witch which captures her.  He rescues the kids and they return home much better mannered.  This is the picture of the Basket Lady.  

Native American Biographies: Sisters Sophie Allison and Irene Mike

When I was in Duckwater, Sophie Allison and Irene Mike were already part of the Senior Center program.  However they were both still very active.  They were respected as community elders.  They were sisters.  They were faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and were some of the few who actually attended the Lund Ward on a regular basis.  The Lund ward was 50 miles away.  When we started a branch in Duckwater, they were very active.
One of the most impressive things about Sophie Allison was her basket weaving.  I feel, in her own right, she was keeping a vanishing tradition alive.  I visited her one afternoon while she was preparing willows for weaving.  She gathered the willows from along creeks.  The Currant Creek had a large patch of willows and this was a favorite spot for gathering.  She would keep the willows in water until she was ready for them.  She would take a willow from the water, and then hold it in her mouth.  With her fingers she would peel the bark away.  In this manner she prepared the willows for weaving.  Sophie was adept at making cradle boards.  They had a different design on the hood for boys and girls.

girl

boy

 She also made baskets.  Mostly she would make baskets to assist in the gathering of pine nuts.  I remember she would make cone shaped baskets for this.
This is a skill that was important to the original Shoshone.  I don't know who is carrying on this tradition now that Sophie is gone.

Sophie in the middle and Irene on the right

Many of the children from the reservation looked to these two women as Grandmother.