Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream

Portraits of American Genius #1

by Greg Sarris

A world-renowned Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman, Mabel McKay expressed her genius through her celebrated baskets, her Dreams, her cures, and the stories with which she kept her culture alive. She spent her life teaching others how the spirit speaks through the Dream, how the spirit heals, and how the spirit demands to be heard.

Greg Sarris weaves together stories from Mabel McKay's life with an account of how he tried, and she resisted, telling her story straight—the white people's way. Sarris, an Indian of mixed-blood heritage, finds his own story in his search for Mabel McKay's. Beautifully narrated, Weaving the Dream initiates the reader into Pomo culture and demonstrates how a woman who worked most of her life in a cannery could become a great healer and an artist whose baskets were collected by the Smithsonian.

Hearing Mabel McKay's life story, we see that distinctions between material and spiritual and between mundane and magical disappear. What remains is a timeless way of healing, of making art, and of being in the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Native American, Anthropology, Biography, History, Spirituality, Native Americans

Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Gregory Michael Sarris is the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the Graton Rancheria Endowed Chair in Creative Writing and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, where he teaches classes in Native American Literature, American Literature, and Creative Writing.

Reviews

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, lively memoir of Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman Mabel McKay, as written by Greg Sarris, who knew her for most of his life until she passed in the early 1990s. Sarris is currently the chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria based in Sonoma County which serves the local Pomo and Miwok populations. Sarris is very much also a character in this story, which lays out many conversations had on long car rides up and down the California coast, while Sarris drove McKay to give talks at universities and museums or to visit her relatives. The story is non chronological but still immersive, telling of McKay's childhood, her early years doctoring and making baskets, and her life-changing friendship with Essie Parrish, another basket weaver and important figure in Sonoma county. I'd highly recommend this book, especially to anyone interested in West Coast history, and very especially if you grew up in California.

[gwayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual biography of the eponymous Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman, written by a close confidant, a young man in the process of discovering his own Indian heritage. A fascinating glimpse into the Native Northern California experience and worldview.

[Pat MacEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mabel McKay's life was itself an interwoven work of art. She was a Lolsel Pomo Indian born in northern California, and became the last of the Pomo Dreamers as well as a 'sucking doctor' who used her Dreams, her songs, her exquisite baskets and her talent for seeing and speaking the truth to keep her culture alive and cure her patients of both physical and spiritual ailments. She taught other Pomo as well as anthropologists and college students as much as she could about these things to which she had devoted her time and energy for so many years. Here, too, is depicted her partnership with Essie Parrish, a Kashaya Pomo and another Dreamer. The pair had Dreamed of each other for 20 years before they finally met in a Dancehouse and became fast friends. Greg Sarris, an improbable foster son who did not know that he was himself part Pomo when he first met the two Dreamers, does a first rate job of introducing the reader to the constant contradictions that weave their way through Mabel McKay's accounts of her experiences. She always resisted, he says, telling her story the white people's way, straightforward, from beginning to end. Instead, she insisted on including stray threads and symbols and the spirituality inherent in her work. She might have worked most of her life in a cannery, but the artistry of her baskets is timeless and many are still on exhibit in museums, including the Smithsonian. Recommended for anyone interested in the Dreamers, the Bole Maru, or the spiritual side of basket-weaving among California's First Nations.

[Matías Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

I van only say that I loved this book while I was taking Native North American Cultures in college. Certainly worth reading!

[Michael Citrino · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting account of an amazing Native American healer and internationally renowned basket weaver.

[KV LeSuer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating narrative of Mabel McKay. Lovely story, powerful women, a role model for we who hesitate when walking in a sacred manner.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing was beautiful. Sarris', questions, and thoughts parallel Mabel. Mabel questions the direction she is headed by asking questions of the spirit, Greg ask questions of Mabel to write his book. As he spends more time with Mabel he is confused and fearful just as Mable is with her visitations in her Dreams. Mabel finds out who she is as time goes by just as Greg moves into himself. This is a wonderful story of two people who discovery themselves and their purpose. They both claim their his ancestoral connection and indigenous way of knowing through a life time.

It has connected me to a deeper understanding of ancestral knowing. Regardless of who raised you and in what cultural condition, your ancestral knowing guides you. If I am able to trust and to be persistant. As Mabel said to Greg, "you kept coming back."

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book (especially the descriptions of Mabel when she's healing someone by sucking mucus out of their temples!). However, the strongest writing comes out when Sarris' is telling his own story of self discovery/search for identity. I think the book is more Sarris' journey than Mabel's.

plug: David Sarris wrote both the short stories (ANCESTOR and HOW TOM SMITH CAUSED THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1906) that I will be performing in as part of Word for Word's School and Library Tour this Spring!

[devin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book that shows how old traditions deal with the new world. How she could be a flapper at the same time as talking with the spirit. Old meets new. Would recommend to anyone interested in Native tradition/thought.

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like reading about healers. This is a really ineresting lady.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought provoking, but still did not appeal to me. Melissa gave it to me.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating peek into a powerful medicine woman's life....surprising in its mundane detail. Mabel was a fascinating character who was taught her craft by spirits, not humans.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Portraits of American Genius #1)
by Greg Sarris