Delphine Red Shirt. Photo by Rich Luhr / Flickr

Ahitonwan Yanke
Pendleton Blanket Company
By Delphine Red Shirt
Lakota Country Times Columnist
www.lakotacountrytimes.com

The Pendleton Blanket company is located in Portland, Oregon. It used to be called the Thomas Kay (named after the founder) Woolen Mill in Salem, Oregon. The founder of the company is English and when he began working in the woolen trade in 1863, he was a weaver by profession. In time, his oldest daughter who assisted him in the company, took over the business along with her husband (Charles Bishop) and moved the company to Pendleton, Oregon where they took over a closed woolen mill called the Pendleton Woolen Mill that had been built in 1893.

This area of Oregon is sheep country and wool production there made it easier for the company to relocate and start a profitable business. Because of its location, the company, in 1896 began making unfringed blankets for Native men and fringed blankets for Native women from the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla tribes. When the business failed, the Bishops bought it in 1909.

The Bishops continued making the geometric pattern blankets, but changed the corners from rounded corners to the square cornered blankets that we now have. They also tried selling these new blankets to the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes in the southwest. And their story continues as other tribes began using these blankets for trading and ceremonial use. The company also produces a pattern for their Glacier National Park line of historic blankets. Today, at any give-away, these are cherished blankets, just like the traditional star quilts for the Lakota.

The reason I thought of these blankets today, is that, my family is getting ready to lay another relative in the ground. Tomorrow, I know that we will all gather around the viewing and as that time draws near, all the worry about what my niece will wear in her last hours on the earth, and what will cover her as others come to see her at the wake, I thought about a Pendleton blanket.

This morning, as I awakened, drank my usual three cups of coffee to wake up, I thought of what my own mother used to say, iglujaja na glasto ye, “wash your face and comb your hair”. As early as I remember, she instructed us, every morning, to get ready for school. I thought of how my niece must have been told the same thing, as my mother cared for her, as a young girl. I also thought of how glad my mom will be to see her first grown granddaughter make her journey home. The Lakota belief is that when life gets hard on this earth, your relatives come for you. My mother said, many times they came for her, but always, she told them, “the children still need me.” Into her seventh decade, she was still taking care of children.

I think of all the deaths in my family, and many times, it is the hospital that makes that final decision to, in this case, unplug the dialysis machine. Or in other cases, the heart ceases to continue beating after certain medical procedures. That is another story, we Lakota know well.

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In the case of my niece, this morning, I thought of the beautiful Pendleton blanket or star quilt that will cover her as we all come to say goodbye. I am bitter, I am sad, I am angry. I feel all the feelings that those who grieve over a young life feel. About the children left behind: her eighteen year old son, and teen-age daughters. To whom do they turn to when things get hard?

I thought of that geometric design Pendleton or that star quilt, and I look at my own bed covers on my bed at home (a store bought blue quilt) and I think about how if I could afford it I would buy a beautiful quilt for each of my eleven grown (young adult) nieces that are still alive. All eleven of them, and I would tell them, “put this on your bed, look at it, everyday, and know how special you are.”

(Delphine Red Shirt can be reached at redshirtphd@gmail.com)

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