Dec 18, 2025
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What does it mean to be a "custodian of craft"? 🧵✨ In our latest episode, Alicia sits down with the heritage crafter, conservationist, podca
What does it mean to be a "custodian of craft"? 🧵✨
In our latest episode, Alicia sits down with the heritage crafter, conservationist, podcast host, and Odd Fellow Willow Polson for a journey through the hidden corners of history. From the secret symbolism of the Odd Fellows to the year-long process of weaving baskets, Willow shares what it’s like to hold traditions in your hands.
We’re talking:
The delicate art of restoring 100-year-old silk collars.
The ethics and honor of holding traditions for other cultures.
The essential Victorian tool modern sewists overlook
Grab your knitting bag, embroidery hoop, or spindle, and settle in for a relaxing conversation about crafts, history, and heritage.
Would you like to be interviewed on Handmade History? Know someone we should talk to? Send us message!
“Geo Soctomah Neptune (they/them: Passamaquoddy; born 1988) has been weaving baskets since the age of four, when they first began taking lessons from their grandmother, master basket maker Molly Neptune Parker.
Their name means “two medicine beings stand together as one.” They are from the Snowy Owl Clan from the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, Maine, and they are a two spirit and an artist.
By age twenty, Neptune had earned the title of master basket maker, making them the youngest person to date to receive that honor. The labor of weaving begins with the material harvesting. Brown ash, or known as black ash from black ash tree, an indigenous tree to North America to Turtle Island, is used in basket making and has deep ancestral and spiritual connection to Wabanaki people.
Neptune’s work tells stories of their people and themself as two sprit, though they used to have fear of putting more of their own stories in their work, thinking that it might hurt their sales. Wabanaki baskets are as much in their culture and also a part of the economic systems.
Neptune says in a video, Distinctly Geo: Wabanaki Basketry of Today, made for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, “The more I am able to step into myself more fully in my everyday life, the more I feel I am coming more into balance with my mental health, and my spiritual health, and my emotional health, as well as my physical health. It is making it so much easier for me to tap into that creative energy and to feel that creative drive.” Their joy of fully being themself shows in their work.
In addition to being a skilled basket maker, Neptune is an activist, educator, model, drag performer, and public servant. In September 2020, they were elected to their local school board, becoming the first openly transgender elected official and the first two-spirit person to run for any office in Maine.” (from “Sharing Honors and Burdens”)
Though they died thousands of years ago, hundreds of bodies excavated in western China’s Tarim Basin look remarkably alive.
They retain the hairstyles, clothing, and accoutrements of a long-past culture — one that once seemed to suggest they were migrant Indo-Europeans who settled in the region thousands of years ago.
But the mummies’ seemingly perfect state of preservation wasn’t their only surprise.
When modern DNA research revealed the preserved bodies were people indigenous to the Tarim Basin — yet genetically distinct from other nearby populations — the Tarim Basin mummies became even more enigmatic.
Today, researchers still ask questions about their cultural practices, their daily lives, and their role in the spread of modern humanity across the globe.
How were the Tarim Basin mummies found?
Buried in a variety of cemeteries around the basin as long as 4,000 years ago, the naturally mummified corpses were first unearthed by European explorers in the early 20th century.
Over time, more and more of the Tarim bodies were unearthed, along with their spectacular cultural relics.
To date, hundreds have been found. The earliest of the mummies date to about 2,100 B.C., while more recent mummies have been dated to about 500 B.C.
Who really were the Tarim Basin mummies?
At first, the mummies’ Western-like attire and European-like appearance prompted hypotheses that they were the remains of an Indo-European group of migrant people with roots in Europe, perhaps related to Bronze-Age herders from Siberia or farmers in what is now Iran.
They had blond, brown and red hair, large noses, and wore bright, sometimes elaborate clothing fashioned from wool, furs, or cowhide.
Some wore pointed, witch-like hats and some of the clothing was made of felted or woven cloth, suggesting ties to Western European culture.
Still others wore plaid reminiscent of the Celts — perhaps most notably one of the mummies known as Chärchän Man, who stood over six feet tall, had red hair and a full beard, and was buried over a thousand years ago in a tartan skirt.
Another of the most famous of the bodies is that of the so-called “Princess” or “Beauty” of Xiaohe, a 3,800-year-old woman with light hair, high cheekbones, and long, still-preserved eyelashes who seems to be smiling in death.
Though she wore a large felt hat and fine clothing and even jewelry in death, it is unclear what position she may have occupied in her society.
But the 2021 study of 13 of the mummies’ ancient DNA led to the current consensus that they belonged to an isolated group that lived throughout the now desert-like region during the Bronze Age, adopting their neighbors’ farming practices but remaining distinct in culture and genetics.
Scientists concluded that the mummies were descendants of Ancient North Eurasians, a relatively small group of ancient hunter-gatherers who migrated to Central Asia from West Asia and who have genetic links to modern Europeans and Native Americans.
How were they mummified?
These bodies were not mummified intentionally as part of any burial ritual.
Rather, the dry, salty environment of the Tarim Basin — which contains the Taklimakan Desert, one of the world’s largest — allowed the bodies to decay slowly, and sometimes minimally.
(The extreme winter cold of the area is also thought to have helped along their preservation.)
How were they buried?
Many bodies were interred in “boat-shaped wooden coffins covered with cattle hides and marked by timber poles or oars,” according to researchers.
The discovery of the herb ephedra in the burial sites suggests it had either a medical or religious significance — but what that religion might have been, or why some burials involve concentric rings of wooden stakes, is still unclear.
What did they eat?
Masks, twigs, possibly phallic objects, and animal bones found at the mummies’ cemeteries provide a tantalizing view of their daily lives and rituals.
Though most questions about their culture remain unanswered, the burials did point to their diets and the fact that they were farmers.
The mummies were interred with barley, millet and wheat, even necklaces featuring the oldest cheese ever found.
This indicates that they not only farmed but raised ruminant animals.
What were their daily lives like?
The Tarim Basin dwellers were genetically distinct.
But their practices, from burial to cheesemaking and their clothing, which reflects techniques and artistry practiced in far-off places at the time, seem to show they mixed with, and learned from, other cultures, adopting their practices over time and incorporating them into a distinct civilization.
Researchers now believe their daily lives involved everything from farming ruminant animals to metalworking and basketmaking — helped along by the fact that the now-desolate desert of the Tarim Basin region was once much greener and had abundant freshwater.
Researchers also believe that the Tarim Basin residents traded and interacted with other people in what would eventually become a critical corridor on the Silk Road, linking East and West in the arid desert.
But archaeologists still have much to learn about what daily life was like for these ancient humans, including who they traded with, what religious beliefs they adopted, and whether their society was socially stratified.
Why are the Tarim Basin mummies controversial?
The amazingly preserved mummies have long fascinated archaeologists. But the Tarim Basin mummies have also become political flashpoints.
The Tarim Basin is located in the modern-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, land claimed by China’s Uyghur minority.
Uyghur nationalists claim the mummies are their forbears, but the Chinese government refutes this and has been reluctant to allow scientists to study the mummies or look at their ancient DNA.
In 2011, China withdrew a group of the mummies from a traveling exhibition, claiming they were too fragile to transport.
Some research about the mummies’ DNA has been criticized as downplaying the region’s distinctness in support of China’s attempts to assimilate Uyghur people.
Just as more remains to be learned about the enigmatic mummies, their future as political and national symbols remains disputed too.
Celebrate Spring with Art, Deals, and Sustainable Creations at Whiting Mills!
Spring is the season of renewal—and what better way to welcome it than by refreshing your space with unique, handmade treasures? Mark your calendar for Saturday, May 31, starting at 11 a.m., when Whiting Mills in Winsted hosts its Artists and Makers Spring Cleaning Sale. It’s the perfect opportunity to browse one-of-a-kind creations, meet local artists, and score some incredible deals! One…
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A really neat video by PacoWarabi on how to make blackberry vine baskets! Definitely clears up some things for me on how to get the beginning of the basket to stay.
From left to right: Yucca cordage, hemp cordage, and a test piece of triple-plied linen with beeswax on it. Below is a set of honey locust thorns turned into needles, strung onto an old piece of dogsbane cord.
I've made and used honey locust needles before; specifically, to weave twine through the coils of a coil basket. These have some "hard as nails" I borrowed from my dad's fly tying stash painted onto them, so they should last longer than the ones i've worked with in the past.
All the cordage is hand-twisted, and all is two-ply aside from the linen. I tried rasping a bit of beeswax onto the linen, just to see how it worked out. (the dogs chewed up my candle, so it's good to have something to use the remnants for). Making triple-ply cord by hand is difficult, but it's a higher-quality finished product than double ply, being both more aesthetically pleasing and physically stronger. I just have to learn how to do it without getting frustrated lol.
The left photo above is the recent finely-plied yucca next to a bit of yucca i made several months ago. The right is some hemp i made a few months ago as well, next to a bigger set of hemp i made recently (and cleaned up with a lighter, hence the color/texture difference)
Definitely happy to see improvement!
And one last photo! Clockwise from the left: in-progress hemp, some tulip poplar from several months ago, dogsbane from a cordage class (has to have been well over a year ago now, dang...) and the old yucca cord.
I've heard of the tulip poplar's relative, basswood, being used for cordage, and considering I've messed around making string with it before I even knew the ins and outs of cordage, I do want to try to make some proper *strong* cord with it someday.
I wish i still had the photo of the cedar bark cordage i made, it's now all twisted up into a coil basket i made with japanese stiltgrass. I used relatively weak inner bark from a long-dead tree, but it was still soooo pretty all wrapped up for storage, and it was great practice considering i made a *lot* of it.
Making a Rib Basket
We have virginia creeper and honeysuckle on our front fence that grew wildly over the past spring and summer. So after I pruned them, I removed the bark of honeysuckle and carefully coiled them. Then I started experimenting on making baskets.
This kind of basket which is also called an egg basket is quite fun to make. The only thing is that it requires extremely flexible vines, because of the tight turns.
I used all the vines fresh, therefore a couple of weeks later they shrank a little bit. Usually you have to dry the vines and moisten them prior to weaving. I will try that too!
After all there’s nothing to be afraid of starting to make baskets! There’s so much material around, and you just have to experiment and see which vines are suitable for which projects.
