Collections Spotlight with Meyo Maruffo

During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and through the reopening afterward, the Coe Center partnered with First American Art Magazine to present an interactive Zoom series in which Native artists discussed artworks in the Coe Collections. Collections Spotlight brought deep dives into objects from the Coe collection to the public from the artist’s perspective. These events were free and open to the public.

Meyo Marrufo is Eastern Pomo from the Clear Lake basin. While her tribe is from Robinson Rancheria, she has lived and learned from other California tribes, including the Yurok, Hupa, Maidu, and Miwok. 

Marrufo has learned from many gifted artists over the years, focusing on cultural arts, regalia making, and traditional foods and cooking techniques. She teaches classes in Northern California in these methods, focused on continuing this knowledge and renewing it for future generations. Her digital artwork shows examples of basket patterns, traditional dancing, and Pomo life, and is shown throughout California.

Contemporary piece by Bun Lucas, who carved a variety of pieces, usually from cottonwood. The figure is male dancer. Marrufo talks about the typical dancewear from the coast region starting from the lower portion the figure and moving upwards. She starts by discussing the skirt, stating that the front flap is a style not used for everyday wear. The backside is covered with individually carved and painted dotted feathers.

Marrufo talks about how men in some portions of Northern California tribes wear tied feather skirts. These skirts are made of netting with individual feathers tied to them. The top part of the skirt is fluff and usually also has beadwork, smaller feathers, leather, etc. to cover the top start. The figure has a hairnet, a flicker band, and “horns”/hairpins. Marrufo discusses that there are two styles of wearing hairpins–forward in the front which is more coastal and represents deer and toward the back which represents birds.

The flicker band is usually made of individual bird feathers from the Northern Flicker, a bird also known as the Red Shafted Woodpecker. Around thirty birds are used to make a flicker band. Marrufo talks about how using Flicker feathers in fedoras almost drove the birds to extinction due to demand.

She shows a flicker band made for her son and uses it to explain the details of flicker band construction. Only certain feathers are used from each bird are used. The orange portion of the flicker band is wing tip feathers, while the black tails are trimmed and make up the diamond shapes around the edges. The middle portion of the band has two abalone buttons which are used to help attach the band to the wearer’s head. She discusses the flicker bands’ cultural/spiritual significance for their male dancers. The hairnet design is meant to be part of the flicker band.

The doll figure also has a whistle, and Marrufo thinks a piece of cordage to accompany the whistle is missing, she discusses that male dancers keep their whistles on a piece of cordage when not in use.

Marrufo agrees that the object might date around 1880. She notes the clamshell beaded in brick stitch/flat peyote stitch. Each of the abalone pieces was carved out using a hand drill. Hand drills are made using willow shoots and crushed diamonds/obsidian. She notes some of the breakage.

This necklace is made with cotton cordage. Cordage was originally made from the dogbane plant. There have been other materials used for cordage like milkweed, wild iris, and wild grape. Marrufo notes how the red has been taken off the abalone while some pieces may have been flipped.

Marrufo calls this basket a lattice-weave basket. She describes straight willow sticks, horizontal willows, and the sedge grass/roots that connect them while leaving gaps like a sieve.

Marrufo thinks that because of its size, this is a storage basket. The bottom of the basket has a plaited-like base to add sticks without them showing as much. The top has plaited edges, some twinging rows to strengthen the edge, which is cut flush. The bottom start is not crossed over, nor it is closed to add more sticks.

Marrufo looks at the design of the basket such as the bottom, base, and coils, but notes that the pinholes and random pieces of colored grass may not be Pomo. The imagery/design appears Pomo and was created using black bulrush and red bud bush.

Marrufo says the basket could be Maidu, but that the three-rod technique is Pomo. She notes the repairs to the basket. She notes that in most Pomo baskets, the designs on the outside of the basket can also be seen on the inside since the plant material is pulled through.

Beads are incorporated on the basket and are strung on a piece of sedge which is then stitched down. The patterns are created with colored beads and form a pattern around the basket. Each pattern has a dau or obvious/intentional mistake that allows the spirit to enter the pattern.

Marrufo identifies this basket as Washoe as the beads are sewn onto the basket/over the basket, versus the Pomo style, where beads are woven into baskets. Is used for comparison with NA0536 to highlight the Pomo stye.

NA0538b – Marrufo says this is a coiled Pomo feather basket with two types of feathers (mallard neck/quail tips). Both types of bird are edible and are usually harvested and eaten. The feathers would be flattened and cleaned. The feathers are then stitched down onto the basket, taking care to ensure that they are facing the correct direction and have the colored side out.

NA0538b – Marrufo notes the same process of adding in the feathers to the basket and notes how some of the feathers are clipped. She also lists various bird feathers that could be used for the colors. The yellow feathers used in this basket are from a Meadowlark. The basket has a small string to hang from. Marrufo talks about how baskets could be hung in houses which shows off the bottoms of the baskets.