Art Form: Ojibwe cultural traditions and basket making

Location(s): Blanchard (Isabella County)

Donald "Red Arrow" Stevens

Portrait of Don "Red Arrow" Stevens

Don Stevens classic deer form made of a black ash splint

Don Stevens using a knife on a piece of cattail reed outside his home in Blanchard in 1988

Don "Red Arrow" Stevens (1933-2007) was well known throughout the state for his expertise in black ash basketmaking and his skills in traditional Ojibwe dance, storytelling, and song. He was an enrolled member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Many members of his family have made their living making and selling traditional Ojibwe crafts. Red Arrow learned to make black ash splint baskets from his father and his grandmother and has been making baskets ever since he was a young boy. Among his specialties were children's toys fashioned out of small piece of black ash splint; one form he frequently made is that of a horse.

While he was adept at making many different functional and decorative forms of baskets, Red Arrow was best known for making a basket that looks like a strawberry that Red Arrow and other elders call by its Anishinaabemowin name, "ode'imin" or "the heart berry." When an ode'imin is sliced in half, it resembles a heart.

Sometimes he sold these, but this basket was more important to him for ceremonial use. "When our young girls used to become the age we considered as adult and responsible for their actions, our village used to give them to the girls. When the girls received this it was a great honor," he said. (1)

The heart berry basket was also used in naming ceremonies when, according to Red Arrow, "the medicine man or lady or the grandparents and parents gave names to the young ones" and a two-inch high basket, called a grave basket, is placed in the grave of the deceased so "they would have the heart berry in the new life. The red color reminds us that the Creator shed his blood for us." (2) Though he said that some of the members of the community no longer used the strawberry basket for all of its traditional uses, Red Arrow made sure members knew how to make the baskets and use them in ceremonies.

Red Arrow was very dedicated to sharing his traditional skills and knowledge with others in order to increase general understanding of Ojibwe life and also, more importantly, to make sure the skill was perpetuated so that baskets will be available for ceremonies in the future.

(1) Stevens, Don. Audio recorded interview with Lynne Swanson, East Lansing, Michigan. 13 March 1991.

(2) Stevens, Don. Audio recorded interview with Lynne Swanson, East Lansing, Michigan. 13 March 1991.