Cherokee Burden Basket: A Song for Balance

Curator Tour: Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts – Reframing the Past

Collection Spotlight: Cherokee Burden Basket: Singing a Song for Balance, Shan Goshorn

One Book One Northwestern, 2024–25

This artwork was selected in response to themes in Northwestern’s community-wide reading of The Night Watchman (2020) by Louise Erdrich.

Shan Goshorn’s Cherokee Burden Basket uses texts from documents such as the mission of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the United States Indian Removal Act (1830), and the Treaty of New Echota (1835). The texts are printed out in strips, or splints, and woven into the traditional form of a burden basket. The baskets are designed to carry heavy loads, and basket weaving is a skill passed down through generations of Cherokee women. In Goshorn’s basket, the burdens are both physical and metaphorical. Several of the documents the artist included bring attention to US laws and ideologies that have sought to assimilate Native Americans and to erase their culture. These are balanced with Cherokee cosmological symbols of the four directions and their symbolic colors—red (east), black (west), white (south), and blue (north)—and traditional morning and evening songs that have the potential for healing.

Goshorn’s use of governmental and other official texts that document the harm done to Indigenous existence and identity by the US government brings to mind author Louise Erdrich’s statement in the afterword to her book, "if you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits and demolish lives, let this book erase that doubt," and her hopeful reminder, "Conversely, if you should be of the conviction that we are powerless to change those dry words, let this book give you heart."

We are happy to provide a shareable pdf booklet and downloadable images for teaching and engagement. You can schedule a class visit to discuss these works in person in our study center by contacting Essi Rönkkö at essi.ronkko@northwestern.edu.

Janet Dees, "Shan Goshorn, Cherokee Burden Basket: A Song for Balance," essay from the publication Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking about History with The Block's Collection (2021)