page_title: Elsie Allen
section_title: Basketry
hierarchical_section_title: Elsie Allen / Basketry
caption_attribution_description: Basket is 4 feet high.
context_page_description: Elsie Comanche Allen was a Native American Pomo basket weaver from the Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California in Northern California, significant as for historically categorizing and teaching Californian Indian basket patterns and techniques and sustaining traditional Pomo basketry as an art form.
context_section_description: The Pomo people traditionally lived in the area around the Russian River in California- including Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake counties. This area has an abundance of willows, sedges, and other plants that are traditionally used for basketweaving.
  Elsie came from a family of accomplished basketweavers, including her mother, Annie Ramon Gomachu Burke (1876–1962) and her maternal grandmother, Mary Arnold (1845–1925), both of Cloverdale Rancheria. Elsie's mother, Annie founded the Pomo Indian Women's Club, which promotes the tribe's basketry. She also convinced Elsie to break with tradition and not burn or bury her baskets – instead to keep them for future basketmakers.
  Although she learned to weave as a child, Allen was only able to weave full-time at the age of 62, when her children were all grown. During the 1950s and 1960s, interest in basketry among Pomo had waned, so Allen began teaching anyone interested in learning her technique, which created controversy in her tribe. She taught at the Mendocino Art Center to both Natives and non-Natives as a means of preserving the art of basketweaving and the tradition associated with it. Late in her career, Elsie Allen began using commercial materials in her baskets after receiving a vision. One of her last students was her niece, Susan Billy.
caption: Allen's grandmother, Nellie Burke, weaving a 4 foot high basket in 1898
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