Basketry Bowl c. 1940, Chehalis

Basketry Bowl c. 1940Chehalis Tribe, Washingtoncedar bark, bear grass 4” high x 7.25” diameter  "In the old days we gathered sacred roots and berries. We fished the Chehalis, Black, Cowlitz, Satsop, Wynoochee, Elk, Johns, Skookumchuck, and Newaukum rivers. Our people fished and hunted from the mountains, across the prairies, to Grays Harbor and in the lower Puget Sound. In the old days the baskets carried and stored our foods. We relied upon the baskets, the rivers, the land, the roots, the berries, the fish, and the animals. Our lives were tied together by the Creator." - Liichaat, Chehalis Tribal Elder For many centuries, two large groups of Salish-speaking people lived along the Chehalis River. They lived in cedar longhouses with one end open to the water from which they received a bounty of salmon and other river-based sustenance. These two groups were the Upper and Lower Chehalis, and they thrived for a long time, until the encroachment of white settlers forced them to give up the