Twinning

Chickasaw Culture Keepers

Chickasaw textile artist Sara Herrera continues the tradition of her ancestors, creating beautiful twine bags on a loom by hand. "Someone is always needing something to carry," Sara says. "The Chickasaw women would make the bags for the guys because the guys would go hunting or they would travel and so they needed something to carry their tools and extra arrowheads." Twining a bag takes Sara three to four months and the designs and colors come to her as she's working. As she demonstrates her process, she explains that each bag has a mistake and it's never perfect, but that's what makes them unique. "I feel good that whenever I give a bag away, or give it to someone, that my work is out there," she says. Keeping this ancient Chickasaw tradition alive “makes me feel good that now that I know how to do this, I would like to continue doing this and hopefully pass it down."

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