Gray Barbara

Barbara Gray (Kanatiiosh)
MOHAWK/WOLF CLAN
P0 Box 1048
Akwesasne, NY 13655
Kanatiiosh@aol.com

After returning to Akwesasne to work for the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, lawyer Barbara Gray began taking classes at the Akwesasne Museum. She was taught by talented basketmakers including Irene McDonald, Henry Arquette, Katie Thompson and Linda Jackson.
Barbara grew up around basketmakers and remembers sitting at the feet of her grandmother and her aunt, Hattie Mitchell, watching them weave with “the smell of sweet grass in the air, the Kanienkehaka language being spoken, and their hands skillfully weaving basket lids and bottoms.” As a child, her Aunt Hattie and Uncle Joe would take her out in their garden to teach her the significance of corn in Haudensosaunee culture. Those visits would later inspire Barbara to make a basket in the shape of an ear of corn. In 2005, she entered the corn basket in the New York State Fair and won first place.