The Great Dot-So-La-Lee

Her original name was Da-Bu-Da, meaning “broad of hips,” reflecting the fact that she was a large woman weighing more than 300 pounds. Early in life she married a fellow tribesman named Assu, but continued to use her maiden name of Da-Bu-Da. Subsequently her husband and her two children died.

Soon after the Civil War she was employed by a doctor, S. L. Lee in Carson City, and from this association assumed the name of Dot-So-La-Lee. In 1888, she again married to a mixed breed named Charley Kaiser and took the name, Louisa Kaiser. The latter name she used as identification symbols of all the baskets she made following the year 1895 when she was employed by Mr. and Mrs. Abram Cohn of Carson City. (The accurate records of Mr. Cohn show that the period of 1895 until she died in 1925, Do-So-La-Lee wove baskets numbered from “LK-1” to “LK-120.”)

HER LIFE (1829-1925)

Dot-So-La-Lee was born in a forlorn Indian village near the community that later became known as Sheridan, Carson City, Douglas County, Nevada. As neither tribal or American records or events concerning pre-1850 California tribes were kept in any significant manner, the exact date of her birth is impossible to confirm; however from related incidences, she described in later years, a reasonable approximation of her birthday may be established.

The most logical of these was her contact with John C. Fremont and his volunteers that took place in January 1844, at Carson City when she was a young girl of some 16 to 18 years of age. Shortly before she died, she visited a knoll where she clearly described her meeting with “the first white men and their pack animals” which tallied accurately with the time and place of Freemont’s visit. Further, she obtained from some members of the party, brass buttons with eagles on them which she cherished and kept with her for the remainder of her life.

Assuming these facts are true, Dot-So-La-Lee would have been about 96 years old when she died. Sam Davis, the author of the history of Nevada, disputes this theory slightly, stating she was probably born about 1840 and lived to the age of 85.

EARLY LIFE

When still a young girl, Dot-So-La-Lee had become a proficient and versatile basket maker, but in 1850-1851 an unexpected turn of events forced her to discontinue her weaving.

The Paiute tribe from the barren desert to the east had been searching for an accessible pass through the mountains to the lush vegetation of the Western lands of California. The small Washo tribe, among others, was blocking their way. A war ensued, and the Washo was subjected to complete subjugation... They were forced to give up all their worldly belongings, they were made to cut their hair, they were forced to accept white man’s names, and worse yet, they were no longer allowed to continue their most lucrative trade... that of basket making.

Until this time, Dot-So-La-Lee had woven for the most part, “utilitarian” or ”culinary” baskets... baby cradles, carrying flails, burden baskets, and the like. Only on rare occasions had she produced a “ceremonial” basket, the type that would later bring her fame.

Dot-So-Lee enjoyed games of chance and had woven a set of gambling sticks (usually made of wooden sticks or polished bones): these sticks were 1 3/8 inches long and 1/8 inch thick. Just as she cherished the brass buttons, she kept the special gambling sticks with her always.

It was a strange turnabout that the arrival of the white soldiers saved the Washoe tribes from complete extinction at the hands of the merciless Paiute: however, the Washoe solemnly observed the restrictions imposed on them and made no baskets for scores of years following their capitulation.

In 1871 she found employment with the family of Harris Cohn, a lead- ing merchant in the hustling mining region of Monitor in Alpine County. She became their servant and Guardian for their curly-headed son named Abram, to whom she became deeply attached, and whom she turned to for help in later years.

But the days of Nevada’s mighty wealth soon passed, and as her years were slipping by, she became less desirable as a servant. And thus, she returned to her old art of producing “utilitarian” baskets for other members of the tribe as her livelihood.

But again fate had turned its ugly head, and the tin pails and the gunny- sack had made their appearance in quantity and were quickly replacing the traditional baskets that required long and tedious hours of labor to produce. It had become the new way of the land to spend their time more wisely and making fine, coiled baskets “for sale” to a new class of travelers passing through her country, known as “tourists.” The tourists would pay more money for the finer baskets that were oriented to their taste... Money with which she could purchase many tin pails and gunnysacks, and still have money remaining to obtain other necessities.

DOT-SO-LA-LEE’S MODERN WEAVING

Money became very scarce in 1895. Dot-So-La-Lee, then about 70 years old, took four flasks (some claim two) that she had covered with finely woven weaving to an old friend... Abram Cohn, the youngster she had cared for many years before, while working for his father. Abram Cohn, then managing a men’s furnishing store in Carson City, had long realized that the art of Indi- an ceremonial baskets was rapidly vanishing as a cultural heritage of America, particularly in the case of the ”ceremonial” baskets that were traditionally buried with the death of the owners.

He and his wife had amassed a modest basket collection. He recognized that Dot-So-La-Lee’s flasks were exceptionally fine work and would make an impressive addition to their group of baskets. He unhesitatingly bought them and instructed her “to return home; forget the long years of the submissions agreement (with the Paiutes) and make ceremonial baskets.”

Estimates vary as to the total number of baskets woven by Dot-So-LaLee, ranging from 256 the 308. There is also some discrepancy in the number of documented ”masterpieces” in the total attributed to her, ranging from 38 to 76; the lower estimates are probably more accurate in that Dot-So-La-Lee like many other great artists could not be “hurried along,” and most of her finer examples required more than a year to complete.

THE PASSING OF DOT-SO-LA-LEE

Somewhere around 90 years of age, Dot-So-La-Lee became ill and tired and suffered from edema or swelling of the ankles. With her lumbering size, she became almost immobile, and, in true Indian tradition, wanted to return to her native home. Her husband took her back to their crude “campoodie,” now located on the present Reno-Carson Highway.

When the white doctors failed to help, she called in her tribal medicine men and professional wailers – but to no avail, Dot-So-La-Lee passed away and was buried in the little Stewart School Cemetery near Carson City on December 6, 1925.

In accordance with the tribal tradition, and her last wishes, the trinkets that she cherished all her life… The Fremont buttons, the woven gambling sticks, and other personal items were buried with her including the unfinished basket on which she was working on at the time. She had entitled this basket, “Friendship.”