In 2025, the pursuit of truth is a ChatGPT search query. While such easily accessed conveniences provide answers, seemingly to any question we may seek, by placing trust in the hands of our artificial counterparts, we abandon our obligation to seek truth and accomplish true social change. For anthropological consultant and seventh-generation basket weaver Stephanie Craig, the waves AI induced noise are just another backdrop in her 20 year journey of preserving Indigenous history and facing discomfort in pursuit of truth.

Craig, a descendant of Santiam and Yoncalla, Takelma, Cow Creek Umpqua, and Chinook, didn’t grow into her heritage until her undergraduate years at University of Oregon. She grew up in a rural non-BIPOC community where sticking with the status quo meant safety.

Craig attributes the parental decision to conceal their culture largely to the generational trauma endured by her mother. “My mom grew up on the reservation in Grand Ronde during the time of termination. We didn’t have Federal recognition, so she got a lot of harassment,” she said.

The Termination Era (1953-1970) was a period when the government, in pursuit of the natural resources controlled by the tribes, revoked the sovereignty of Indigenous nations. Followed by numerous efforts to erase their identities and Americanize the nations, the government forced the previously independent communities to assimilate into American cultures and ideologies. While the effects of this homogenization remain 55 years later, Craig has dedicated her life to uncovering and preserving the histories and identities of her people through her practice of basket weaving, ethnobotany, ceremonial fishing and understanding of traditional foods.

For Craig, who has a master’s degree in cultural anthropology, museum studies and folklore, identity has been the pillar of her career. While she was an undergraduate studying anthropology, an experience at UO’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History pushed her career into motion.

“The docent was giving me a tour of the native exhibit, and they had a photo of my family. He was telling me the history of my family,” Craig said. “And so when he was done talking, then I told him my family’s history. And when I finished, I turned around and all the museum staff had gathered behind me.”

This experience was far from her last. When interning with the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American Indian Archives Department, Craig walked into the George Gustav Heye Center only to find her family’s items on display. As the curators opened the display cases, Craig grappled with the complex emotions that accompany reconnection.

“It’s a shock. I’m not mad or upset, just sad,” Craig said. “Those belongings feel lost.”

The flood of emotions wasn’t all negative, though. “As soon as those doors or cupboards or drawers are open, it’s like they see me, and I see them,” Craig said. “There’s this light bulb, a spark of good energy and it feels like we’re connected again. It feels like my grandmothers and my aunties are right there with me. Then it’s just exciting; happy and warming. I act like a little kid in a candy store.”

But much like the history of clashes between settler colonial and Indigenous ideologies, the best practices of cultural preservation are also at odds. Craig is left feeling that these items, ironically placed on a pedestal by Western culture, need to be freed from their captivity and returned to their rightful owners.

The growth of culture lies in the generation of dialogue between the past and present, so by caging critical pieces of Indigenous history, cultural development is stunted. Indigenous communities are stripped of autonomy when cultural power rests in the hands of colonizers.

“If the items aren’t in our community, our culture will end with whomever they choose,” Craig said. We know how to take care of those items better than anyone else. There’s no reason why a non-Indigenous institution or repository should hold on to cultural material, especially when that community has their own repository.”

Perhaps due to its inability to cultivate authentic aesthetics combined with its history of extraction, the Western world — white America in particular — has long had a fetishistic relationship with cultural objects, both Indigenous and nonnative. Particularly in the context of items engineered for use, like the baskets which Craig specializes in, the pedestal Western society has placed them on leaves them to collect dust.

“Our items were not ever made to be put on a shelf and put in a closet,” Craig said. “They’re meant to be used and used until they bust and break. Then, at that point, we put them to rest, or we repair and keep using them.”

For Craig, the materials represent the tangible intentions of her ancestors, and using them solidifies the relationship between the present and the past. “We are today the dreams of our ancestors two generations ago coming true, just like how we dream for the future of our children and grandchildren,” Craig said. “They didn’t want our history to end, and by being able to connect with them, they get to feel that we are still thinking of them, being mindful and living respectfully with the land and our resources.”

Craig’s own basket weaving is enmeshed with intentional effort and historical cognizance. Her practice, which she began as a child when it was passed down from tribal elders and maternal family members, was kept humbly covered throughout her college years. When she decided it was time to begin passing her knowledge on to future practitioners, she took all the appropriate steps.

“I didn’t just go rogue. I asked permission from my oldest tribal elders first,” Craig said. “The whole goal of any native woman who is a culture-bearer or culture-keeper is to practice the craft in order to transmit it to the next generation and to keep it from getting lost.”

Even when health issues — carpal tunnel and arthritis — put a dampener on her personal projects, she forged on. “I was told about 15 years ago that I’d only have about 10 to 12 years left of use in my hands,” Craig said. “So I had to slow down a lot, but I still taught.”

As Craig raises her own children, passing down her wealth of knowledge to the next generation, she recognizes that fighting the friction created by the ease of modern technology is difficult. But through countless hours weaving baskets and fighting friction in daily life, she’s built the work ethic needed to keep encouraging growth.

For Craig, her headstrong and diligent mindset was passed down through generations of strong and capable women. From a young age, she was exposed to photos of her great-grandmother whose strong hands were formed from weaving baskets and farming.

“I knew my grandma had big hands because she worked hard and was able to provide for her family,” Craig said. “So my goal was to always have big, rough hands.”

With the comforts of modern technologies, it’s become increasingly difficult for Craig to convey the value of her work both in basket weaving and cultural preservation to potential protégés.

“A lot of people, native and non-native, want me to make the basket for them, or they want me to cut everything down and give them this nice package,” Craig said. “They don’t want to gather, learn to process materials or understand ethnobotany and traditional ecological knowledge because it’s too hard; it takes them away from video games, from dating and from social life.”

The pursuit of truth is a lifelong endeavor and a mechanism for change. When the falsehoods of socially dominant systems are revealed and ignorance is fractured, burying thoughts of change is no longer an option. With a contemporary American political climate that manipulates information systems, an already divisive historical field has been put in jeopardy.

“With the new administration and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), I’ve lost contracts with museums. I get emails that say, ‘Well, I don’t have to follow NAGPRA Federal law,’” Craig said. “A month and a half ago is when I already started feeling this administration’s power. I have lost six big contracts already: two state, two federal and two tribal.”

While the future is complicated, the potential of a generation with minds adjusted to the allure of instant gratification excites Craig. “We’re raising the children, and since they were born they’ve been out gathering basketry materials,” Craig said. “They’ve been to ceremonies since birth and they’re growing up. In the next generation, there’s gonna be even more of a grasp on our culture, and I think that in itself is amazing.”

Questions of potential will be answered in time, and it is only in the present where the future can be built. Though unexpected circumstances can lead to challenges, adapting in real-time will build the path to a worthwhile outcome.

“We don’t get to choose our life or our path. That’s done by the Creator, or some higher power, and I am just the one that was chosen for my life,” Craig said. “I am here to do a job. My ancestors chose me, and, by God, I’m going to do the best damn job I can.”

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