Governor's Heritage Award - Sara Quaempts

Sarah Quaempts of White Swan, on the Yakama Indian Reservation, began weaving with her two grandmothers when she was nine. Quaempts became one of the most respected and accomplished Plateau Indian weavers from the Columbia River basin. She was one of the few remaining masters who wove with Indian hemp (Apocynum). Hemp bags, hats, and dance regalia are the oldest twined form indigenous to the Plateau region, and are highly prized. Weaving a hemp bag is time-consuming and can take up to an entire year. Gathering and preparing fibers for the twine takes as long as weaving the bag itself. Quaempts was equally skillful at twining cornhusk bags and dance regalia and was a master beadworker. In addition to her work as a master weaver, she was a language specialist and tribal historian, and was highly regarded for maintaining the traditional Plateau Indian way of life. Sara Quaempts passed away in 1998.