Letter from Sara Avery McIlhenny to Harry L. George
Entry/Object ID
Q1430.635.102T
Description
A 3-page handwritten letter from Sara Avery McIlhenny to Harry L. George involving the names of the remaining Native Americans who are still weaving baskets. Vol II pg. 102T
Dear Sir
I fear I did not make my former letter to you sufficiently explicit in regard to the confusion in names of the remnants of Indians who are still weaving the baskets of which I sent you a photograph.
Allow me therefore to explain myself; the tribe of Attakapa has long been extinct & though there was an occasional marriage between them & the Chetinches they were not allied as tribes in the baskets you refer to are all made & always have been made, solely by the Chetimaches Indians. the only instance of their patterns were discovered was, on some reservations . Aztec remains studied and recorded within the last three or four years . This region of Louisiana is still ????? the "Attakapa" country & that is probably the way in which the name was first attached to the baskets. Mr. Swanson of the Smithsonian has been twice to Louisiana to study the remnants of tribes here & can give you any further details that you may desire.
Hoping that I may have the pleasure of filling your order for baskets & that you can procure other orders for these poor people. I am very truly yours
