Annual Gathering

California Indian basket weaving has endured despite generations of forced displacement, land loss, and systemic policies that nearly erased Indigenous cultural practices throughout California. As Native peoples were removed from their ancestral homelands, access to the landscapes that sustained basket weaving traditions (rivers, wetlands, meadows, and forests) was abruptly severed. Plants that had been carefully tended, gathered, and stewarded by original land caretakers became inaccessible due to public and private land laws that excluded Native people from their own traditional territories. Basket weaving is inseparable from the land. It relies not only on technical skill, but on traditional ecological knowledge on when to gather, how to tend plants, how fire, water, and seasonal cycles shape materials. When elders were prevented from practicing their traditions or accessing gathering areas, this knowledge was placed at grave risk. As elders passed on, entire systems of environmental management, plant preparation, and weaving techniques were in danger of being lost with them.

Despite these challenges, California Indian weavers persisted. Some were able to remain on or near their homelands, navigating restricted access and changing landscapes to continue their practices. Others carried fragments of knowledge from the memories of aunties, grandmothers, and community members who once wove, even when the full teachings had been disrupted. Basket weaving survived not because conditions were favorable, but because weavers refused to let it disappear.

In the 1980s, it became increasingly clear that survival alone was not enough. Weavers needed collective advocacy, intertribal support, and a formal structure to protect access to traditional materials, support elders as teachers, and ensure that basket weaving knowledge could be passed on to future generations. In response to this urgent need, California Indian basketweavers came together to form what would become the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA).

CIBA was created as an organization by weavers, for weavers rooted in cultural responsibility, intergenerational knowledge sharing, and respect for tribal sovereignty. Its founding marked a turning point transforming individual survival into collective strength. Through advocacy, education, and gatherings that brought weavers together across regions, CIBA helped ensure that basket weaving would not only endure, but continue as a living, evolving cultural practice grounded in land, community, and ancestral knowledge.

Today, the Annual Gathering stands as a direct continuation of this origin story — a space where the survival of basketry becomes cultural renewal, and where elders, adults, and youth come together to sustain traditions that were never meant to be lost.

The first informal Gathering of California Indian basketweavers was held in 1991 at Ya-Ka-Ama, near Forestville in Sonoma County. At the time, basketweavers across Northern and Central California were largely working in isolation, separated by geography, limited access to gathering areas, and the impacts of displacement. Opportunities for weavers to come together and share knowledge were limited.

The Gathering at Ya-Ka-Ama created a space that had not existed before. Weavers came together not only to share techniques, materials, and designs, but also to speak openly about the challenges they faced in sustaining their cultural practice. Conversations centered on access to traditional plants, the loss of elder knowledge, and the need to protect basketry as a living cultural practice tied directly to land, ceremony, and community responsibility.

What began as an informal convening quickly revealed something much larger: a shared understanding that basketweavers needed a collective voice. From this first Gathering emerged the formation of the Council of Basket Weavers, a small group of committed women who recognized the necessity of working together to advocate for weavers’ rights, support elders as teachers, and ensure the survival of basket weaving traditions for future generations. This council would later become the recognized nonprofit now known as the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA).

One year later, a second Gathering was held again at Ya-Ka-Ama, intended to bring together Northern and Central California basketweavers. Unexpectedly, basketweavers from Southern California arrived as well. Their presence transformed the Gathering into a truly statewide convening, signaling that the needs, challenges, and responsibilities of basketweavers extended far beyond regional boundaries. This moment affirmed CIBA’s emerging role as a unifying organization for California Indian basketweavers across the state.

These early Gatherings laid the foundation for what the CIBA Annual Gathering would become a space rooted in intertribal connection, cultural responsibility, and collective action. The spirit of CIBA’s first gathering continues to guide the Gathering today.