Hazel Pete, 88; Taught Basket Weaving in Native American Style

Hazel Pete, 88, a respected artist and teacher of traditional Native American basket weaving, died Thursday on the Chehalis Reservation near Oakville, Wash.

No cause of death was reported.

A fifth-generation Chehalis basket weaver, Pete taught arts and crafts at government Indian schools in Oregon, California and Nevada before returning to her native Washington to focus on basket weaving with both traditional and innovative designs.

She passed on her knowledge to two generations of her own family, and helped preserve tribal culture by teaching other students to gather and process natural materials, weave cedar-bark clothing and clam baskets and make cattail mats.

Always active, she wove two baskets a day and continued to teach until last year.

Born to a poor Chehalis farmer and logger father and a mother from the vanished Kwalhioqua tribe, Pete became a staunch advocate of higher education for Native Americans.

She attended government schools on reservations, and graduated from Chemawa Indian High School in Salem, Ore.

As the top art student in her high school, she went on to what is now the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M.

She held degrees from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., where she taught, and the University of Washington.

Pete received the Governor’s Arts and Heritage Award from the Washington Arts Commission in 2001.

Her image is included in the Clock Tower Project at Centralia Community College in Washington state.