Exhibit: McLean Collection: Miwok Baskets

McLean Collection – Miwok Baskets

On view August 14th – May 31, 2023

UC Merced Library, Third Floor

The UC Merced Library is proud to present the Miwok Baskets from the Walter Doyle McLean Collection. Passed on from Southern Miwok born Dulcie Beal, the Miwok baskets are currently on long-term loan to the Library. They are also available for viewing on Calisphere, our online digital repository. For more descriptive information about each basket and the McLean collection, please visit the McLean Collection on Calisphere.

Excerpt taken from Tradition and Innovation: a basket history of the Indians of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area.

Dulcie Beal: 1846-1926

“Dulcie (possibly also known as “Candy,” the English translation of the Spanish dulce) was a Southern Miwok born in Yosemite Valley. She lived with her parents and siblings at the west end of Yosemite Valley, in the area now known as Cascades, until her family fled to Tuolumne Meadows when the Mariposa Battalion entered the valley until 1851. Dulcie Beal lived in Yosemite Valley and in the Coulterville area where she did housework and laundry for Euro-American families. She signed the petition of the Yosemite Indians as “Dulcy” in about 1891, and she was listed as a widowed washerwoman in the census of 1900. Dulcie Beal died in 1926.

Beal gave her personal basket collection, consisting of Miwok and non-Miwok baskets, to Coulterville rancher Walter McLean.”

Bates, & Lee, M. J. (1990). Tradition and innovation: a basket history of the Indians of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area. Yosemite Association.