Box 8

Description Lilly Baker is the resident dean of Maidu basketry and an esteemed elder of the community. She was born in Plumas County in 1911. Her family tree is full of basket weavers, her mother, Daisy Baker, her maternal grandmother, Jenny Meadows, and her paternal grandmother, Lucy Baker were all weavers of distinction. She is holding a VHS “Dancing with the Bear: Lilly Baker and The Maidu Legacy” in her right hand and a geometric patterned basket in her left hand. She makes both coiled and twined...

Description Mural of ceremonial flag for the Bear Dance (A yokoli) by Bob Pfenning in downtown Quincy. Bundled tassels of maple fiber were used to make a ceremonial flag, yokoli, used in the important spring ceremony known as weyda boyem, which includes the relatively well-known bear dance. The maple tassels are usually dyed with a series of horizontal bands, using a reddish orange dye from the bark of alder trees. The mural reads, “Long before the white man came to this land the Maidu performed the...