clue that the film would become a “really big deal,” spawning events and conventions — many of which attract attendees dressed like the characters, causing a resurgence of sweater sales. For Conner, the relationship to Pendleton Woolen Mills is personal, dating back to when she worked at Hamley Western Store & Saddle Shop in downtown Pendleton as a teenager, from the pillows an aunt sent her made from fabric scraps of Pendleton products to seeing Umatilla chiefs at the Pendleton Round-Up in the fall — whose regalia includes Pendleton saddle blankets. “I feel kind of funny, like I live and breathe it every day,” Conner says. Conner notes that the Pendleton-based mill that lends the company its name is on the edge of the Umatilla reservation, and her ancestors were among the first customers of its blankets. The company donates a portion of sales to a number of nonprofits, most of which serve Native American communities.They include the American Indian College Fund; the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center; and, more recently, the First Nations Development Institute, which supports preservation of Indigenous languages, and the Northwest Native American Center of Excellence at Oregon Health & Science University, developed to increase the number of Native Americans in the health care workforce. Those partnerships date back 20 years, when David Kennedy — the co-founder of Portland ad industry Wieden+Kennedy, who was on the board of the American Indian College Fund — suggested Pendleton partner with the organization on commissioned blankets. That model eventually shifted to one where Pendleton makes a donation above and beyond royalties, but the partnership continues. And the relationship with Native communities is, of course, older. In recent years some writers have raised the question about whether Pendleton’s designs are an example of cultural appropriation — particularly as Pendleton has taken on the sheen of a luxury brand rather than the maker of stylish but practical blankets and clothing. (Friedman notes that Pendleton’s products have never been cheap: In the 1920s a Pendleton blanket would have cost $8 or $9, the equivalent of $120 to $130 in 2023 dollars.) But even Pendleton’s harshest critics note that it’s a complicated issue. The original blanket designs — including the Chief Joseph blanket and the Harding blanket, which Friedman says are the company’s longest-running designs — include geometric patterns that have long been linked with Native culture, particularly with the aesthetics of Southwest tribes. Conner says it’s likely some of the early designs were created by Pendleton employees, who traveled Indian country not only merchandising and marketing but gathering inspiration for blanket designs from Indian country without any consideration or compensation for the appropriation of those designs. And while that is a long-ago past practice, it is one of the things that comes into the equation about cultural appropriation and intellectual property today. In more recent decades, Pendleton has begun working directly with Native artists. And in addition to making donations to nonprofits, Conner says, Pendleton partners with Native communities in other ways. When Tamastslikt Cultural Institute opened in 1998, she says, Pendleton resurrected a design named Cayuse from its archives, to be sold in the museum’s store — and gifted the new blankets, along with matching pillows, to those who helped make the museum happen. When Friedman spoke with OB, Killers of the Flower Moon had not yet been released, but he’d seen stills from the movie, including one in which lead actress Lily Gladstone is wearing a Pendleton shawl from the 1920s— one he recognized from his own collection. “I had owned that blanket for 35 or 40 years. It’s a really simple, very plain- “I’ve always been proud of the fact that Pendleton is an Oregon company, and it has stayed in Oregon. Come to any gathering on the Umatilla reservation — or any others — and you will see plenty of Pendleton products on display on the backs of our people or in the regalia of our people.” BOBBIE CONNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TAMASTSLIKT CULTURAL INSTITUTE Above, a worker feeds raw wool into a dye vat. Another worker (middle) manages warp threads on a warp dresser. Above right, dye lab manager Ryan Hill talks about how the company formulates colors. A worker steams blankets (middle right) and at lower right, a worker sews the edges of blankets. 30
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