Skip to main content

Full text of "Indian basketry : studies in a textile art without machinery"

See other formats 


INDIAN     BASKETRY 


Indian   Basketry 

Studies  in  a  Tcitile  Art  Without  Machinery 


By   Otis    Tufton   Mason 

Curator,  Division  of  Ethiw^gy,  U.  S.  National  Museum 


VOL r MR   II 


Plate  158.    See  page  346 

COWLITZ  (SALISHAN)   PACKING  BASKET  AND  KLITITAT  (SHAHAPTIAN) 
BERRY  BASKET 

Both  in  imbricated  decoration 
Collected  by  Charles  Wilkes  and  W.  H.  Holme* 


LONDON 

WILLIAM   HE1NEMANN 
1905 


d».£  sgfiq  992     . 
TATITIJX    d/IA 


aoitcioiab  baJsohdrai  ai  rfJoS 
•sajloH  .H  .W  fans  ssJIiW  zafisdO  yd  fas 


Indian   Basketry 

Studies  in  a  Textile  Art  Without  Machinery 


By   Otis    Tufton  Mason 

Curator,  Division  of  Ethnology,  U.  S.  National  Museum 


VOLUME   II 


LONDON 

WILLIAM   HEINEMANN 
1905 


.  2. 


/4//  rights  reserved,  including  that 
of  translation  into  foreign  lan- 
guages, including  the  Scandinavian 


Printed  in  New   York,   U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

VII.     Etlmic  varieties  of  basketry 255 

List  of  basket-making  tribes 260 

Eastern  North  America 268 

The  Alaskan  region    296 

Athapascan  coiled  basketry 296 

Eskimo    basketry 301 

Aleutian    basketry 312 

Tlinkit  basketry 317 

Haida    basketry 320 

The   Fraser-Columbia  region 336 

The  California-Oregon  region 363 

The  Interior  Basin  region 431 

Shoshonean  and  Pueblo  basketry 432 

Athapascan  basketry 461 

Middle  and  South  America 481 

VIII.     Collectors  and  collections 501 

Preservation  of   baskets 503 

IX.     Bibliography 512 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 

158.  Cowlitz  (Salishan)  packing  basket  and  Klikitat 
(Shahaptian)  berry  basket,  both  imbricated  decora- 
tion    Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

119.  Algonkin  checker  and  wicker  basketry 270 

1 20.  Caroline  Masta,  an  Abenaki  woman,  making   checker- 

work  basket 270 

121.  Chippewa  women  making  checker  and  wicker  baskets.  .  272 

122.  Twilled  matting  finished  in  one  day  by  a  Chippewa  squaw  274 

123.  Hexagonal  weaving,  with  twining,  on  a  Mackenzie  River 

snow-shoe 276 

124.  Coiled   baskets   made  by  Ojibwa   Indians   about  Lake 

Superior 278 

125.  Eskimo  coiled  baskets  of  grass  and  sinew 278 

126.  Openwork  coiled  basket  of  the  Eskimo 278 

127.  Coiled  gambling  basket  of  the  Comanche  Indians 278 

128.  Covered  coiled  baskets  in  pine  straw 278 

129.  Coiled  and  twisted  babiche  in  Dog  Rib  game-bags 280 

130.  Casts    of    potsherds    showing    twined    weaving    among 

ancient  Mound-builders   282 

131.  Ojibwa  twined  wallet  in  open  weaving 284 

132.  Twilled  basketry  of  split  cane,  made  by  the  Chetimachas  290 

133.  Fine  old  twilled  baskets  of  the  Chetimachas 292 

134.  Twilled  baskets  of  cane,  made  by  Choctaw  Indians.  . .  .  296 

135.  Twilled  baskets  of  cane,  made  by  Attakapas 298 

136.  Types  of  twined  and  coiled  basketwork  in  Alaska 302 

137.  Twined  wallet  in  openwork,  Eskimo 302 

138.  Twined  wallet  in  openwork,  Chukchis 304 

139.  Closely  twined  wallet  from  Kamchatka  to  compare  with 

Eskimo  work 304 

140.  Coiled  basketwork  of  Chukchis  and  Koryaks  of  Kam- 

chatka     304 

141.  Eskimo  basket,  showing  interlocking  coiled  work....  310 

142.  Twined  weaving  in  close  and  in  openwork  twined  weaving  312 

143.  Detail  of  crossing  warp  strands  in  Aleut  basket 312 

vii 


viii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATES—  Continued 

PACING  PACK 

144.  Attu  weaver  working  upward  on  soft  warp  suspended.  .   316 

145.  Aleut  Manual  Training  School;  Mrs.  Philaset  teaching 

basket-weaving 318 

146.  Twined  wallets,  with  false  embroidery,  Tlinkit  Indians  320 

147.  Group  of  Tlinkit  basket-weavers  at  work 322 

148.  Chilkat  blanket  done  in  twined  weaving,  the  patterns 

set  in 323 

149.  Old  Haida  wallets  in  twined  weaving  with  braid  on  the 

borders 330 

150.  Haida  basketmakers,  showing  upward  weaving 332 

151.  Double  basketry  hats  of  the  ancient  Nutkas 334 

152.  Twilled  basket  of  the  Quilleute  Indians 336 

153.  Nutka  or  Makah  women  making  wrapped  twine  weaving  338 

154.  Varieties  of  technic  practised  by  Salish  women 340 

155.  Varieties  of  technic  practised  by  Salish  women 342 

156.  Coiled  and  imbricated  baskets  with  covers 342 

157.  Coiled  baskets  imbricated  and  beaded 344 

159.  Old  Klikitat  baskets,  showing  little  imbrication 346 

160.  Imbricated  Klikitat  baskets,  highly  decorated 348 

161.  Imbricated  basket  with  open  border 350 

162.  Twined  and  overlaid  Quinaielt  Salish  baskets 354 

163.  Twined  and  imbricated  work,  showing  detail 354 

164.  Twined  and  overlaid  carrying  wallets  of  the  Skokomish 

Salish  Indians 356 

165.  Twined  wallets  of  Clallam  and  Tillamuk  oalish 358 

166.  Openwork  twined  wallets 358 

167.  Women's  hats  in  twined  basketry,  Nez  Perce  and  Modoc 

compared 360 

168.  Wasco  twined  wallets,  designs  in  wrapped  weaving.  .  .  .   362 

169.  Wasco  twined  wallets,  called  "Sally  Bags" 362 

170.  Hupa  granary  baskets,  twined  and  overlaid 374 

171.  Shasta  Indian  basketmaker  in  the  midst  of  her  work  .  .   374 

172.  Baskets  made  from  hazel  stems 376 

173.  Unfinished  Porno  basket  in  Tee  weave,  showing  technic  382 

174.  Three-strand  twined  baskets,  Klamath  Indians 394 

175.  Pit  River  twined  baskets 394 

176.  McCloud  (Wintun)  twined  baskets  398 

177.  Twined  basketry  of  the  Hat  Creek  Indians,  with  designs 

in  overlaying 398 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  ix 

PLATES— Continued 

FACING  PACK 

178.  Twined  basketry  of  the  Hat  Creek  Indians,  with  designs 

in  overlaying 398 

179.  Washoe  coiled  basket  bowls 400 

1 80.  Fine  coiled  basket  of  the  Washoes,  design  representing 

sunrise 400 

181.  Datsolalee,  the  Washoe  basketmaker 402 

182.  Eastern  Californian  coiled  baskets  402 

183.  Coiled  bowls  of  the  Panamint  Shoshonean  Indians    ....  408 

184.  Tulare  and  Kern  bowls 410 

185.  Tejon  bottle-neck  and  Yokut  bowl,  Fresno  type 410 

186.  Yokut  coiled  basket  bowl,  with  stepped  designs  radiating  41 2 

187.  Tulare  coiled  jar . 414 

1 88.  Coiled  baskets  of  Kern  and  Tulare  Counties  for  study 

in     designs 414 

189.  Coiled    baskets    from    Tulare    County,    showing    char- 

acteristic patterns 416 

190.  Group  of  coiled  baskets,  chiefly  Tejon 416 

191.  Coiled  baskets,  Kern  and  Tulare  types,  California  ......  416 

192.  Coiled     baskets,     from     Caliento    Creek     and    Paiute 

Mountain,  Cal 418 

193.  Bottle-neck  coiled  bowl,  trimmed  with  feathers 420 

194.  Bottle-neck  coiled  bowl,  with  butterfly  flight  design.  .  422 

195.  Apostle  basket,  flat  top  bottle-neck,  California 422 

196.  Openwork  coiled  "Grasshopper  "  baskets    424 

197.  Mission  Indian  coiled  bowl,  showing  charming  shades  of 

the  material 426 

198.  Mission    Indian    designs    on    basketry,    original    and 

borrowed 428 

199.  Mission  Indian  coiled  bowl 428 

200.  Detail  of  Mission  Indian  coiled  bowl,  coiling,  decorating, 

bordering,   and  fastening  off 428 

201.  Ancient  coiled  bowls  in  Peabody  Museum 428 

202.  Ancient  coiled  baskets  in  Peabody  Museum 430 

203.  Rare  old  twined  sack 43° 

204.  Water  bottles  in  close  and  in  open  twined  weaving.  ...  432 

205.  Coiled  basketry  of  ancient  basketmakers 434 

206.  Coiled  basketry  of  ancient  basketmakers 43  6 

207.  Coiled  plaque  of  the  ancient  basketmakers 43^ 

208.  Coiled  bowl  of  the  ancient  basketmakers 44° 


x  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATES— Continued 

FACING  PACK 

209.  Coiled  bowls  of  the  ancient  basketmakers 442 

210.  Food  vessels  of  the  ancient  basketmakers 444 

211.  Hopper  for  mortar,  ancient  basketmakers 446 

212.  Sia  ancient  coiled  baskets 446 

213.  Old  wicker  and  twined  baskets  from  the  Pueblo  of  Zuni  448 

214.  Old  coiled  baskets,  Pueblos  of  Zuni  and  Sia 450 

215.  Hopi  women  making  wicker  and  coiled  basket  trays.  .  .  .  450 

216.  Hopi  sacred  coiled  plaques  in  which  the  symbols  are  re- 

duced to  lowest  terms 452 

217.  Tewan  Pueblo  woman,  on  the  Rio  Grande,  winnowing 

seeds 452 

218.  Old  twined  and  coiled  baskets  from  the  Hopi  Pueblo  of 

Oraibi 452 

219.  Fragment  of  ancient  wicker  basket,  Arizona 456 

220.  Fragments  of  twilled  and  coiled  basketry.  . . 456 

221.  Ancient    wicker    and    coiled    basketry    from    ruins    in 

Arizona    458 

222.  Ancient  coiled  ware  from  ruins  in  Arizona 458 

223.  Ancient  coiled  and  braided  ware  in  mortuary  uses 460 

224.  Coiled  basketry  of  the  Apache,  showing  borrowed  designs  462 

225.  Apache  coiled  bowls 462 

226.  Coiled  bowls  of  the  White  Mountain  Apache 462 

227.  Mescalero    coiled    baskets 466 

228.  Ceremonial  baskets  of  the  Navaho,  Arizona 468 

229.  Coiled  basket  of  the  Kohonino,  showing  method  of  fin- 

ishing off 470 

230.  Havasupai  coiled  bowls 470 

231.  Coiled  baskets  of  the  Chemehuevi,  Arizona    470 

232.  Pima  Indian  carrying  frame 472 

•233.     Old  coiled  bowl  of  the  Pimas.     Designs  in  complex  fret- 
work     478 

234.  Coiled  bowls  of  the  Pimas,  Arizona 478 

235.  Pima  basketmaker  at  work  in  front  of  her  dwelling.  .  .  .  480 

236.  Covered  plume  basket,  Tarahumara  Indians 482 

237.  Yaqui  covered  baskets  in  double  twilled  weaving 482 

238.  Indian  basketmaker  standing  in  front  of  her  plant  ....  486 

239.  Twilled  basketry  of  the  Arawak  Indians 486 

240.  Different  forms  of  carrying  baskets  of  Brazilian  tribes  490 

241.  Different  forms  of  carrying  baskets  of  Brazilian  tribes  490 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xi 

PLATES—  Continued 

FACING  PACK 

242.  Ecuador,  or  Panama,   hat    of   palm   leaf   in    checker 

weaving   492 

243.  Ancient  work-basket  of  Peruvian  spinner  in  fine  wool  496 

244.  Peruvian  ancient  carrying  frame 496 

245.  Fragment  of   ancient   coiled  basket,   found  in  copper 

mine,  Chile 500 

246.  Ancient  coiled  basket  from  copper  mine  in  Chile 502 

247.  Ancient  coiled  baskets  from  copper  mine  in  Chile 504 

248.  Modern  coiled  basket  in  openwork,  Peru 504 

TEXT  FIGURES 

PAGE 

no.     Ash  log  for  making  splints,  Menomini  Indians 271 

in.     Wooden  mallet  for  loosening  splints 272 

112.  Basketmaker's  knife  of  native  workmanship 272 

113.  Coil  of  basket  strips 273 

1 14.  Finished  wicker  basket 274 

115.  Coiled  basketry,  Hopewell  Mound,  Ohio 280 

116.  Coiled  basketry,  Hopewell  Mound,  Ohio 280 

117.  Wickerwork  from  cave  in  Kentucky 281 

118.  Charred  fabric  from  mound 282 

119.  Charred  fabric  from  mound 282 

1 20.  Twined  fish  trap,  Virginia  Indians 284 

121.  Twined  weave  from  ancient  pottery,  Tennessee 287 

122.  Twined  weave  from  ancient  pottery,  Tennessee 287 

123.  Detail  of  twilled  basketry  border,  Choctaw  Indians, 

Louisiana 290 

124.  Border  of  twilled  basketry,  Choctaw  Indians,  Louisiana  290 

125.  Twilled  basket,  Arikara  Indians 293 

126.  Ancient  twilled  matting,  Petit  Anse  Island,  Louisiana  295 

127.  Coiled  work-basket,  Tinne"  Indians,  Alaska 297 

128.  Coiled  work-basket,  Tinne*  Indians 298 

129.  Coiled  work-basket,  Tinne"  Indians 299 

130.  Coiled  work-basket,  Tinne"  Indians 300 

131.  Detail  of  coiled  basket 301 

132.  Tobacco  basket,  Hupa  Indians,  California 302 

133.  Detail  of  Eskimo  twined  wallet 303 

134.  Coiled  basket,  Eskimo  Indians,  Alaska 306 

135.  Bottom  of  figure  134 307 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

TEXT    FIGURES— Continued 

PAGE 

136.  Detail  of  Eskimo  coiled  basket 308 

137.  Twined  basket  wallet,  Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska 321 

138.  False  embroidery,  Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska 322 

139.  Detail  of  false  embroidery 323 

140.  Carrying  wallet,  Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska 324 

141.  Twined  and  wicker  weave,  Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska.  ...  325 

142.  Wallet,  Chilkat  Indians,  southeastern  Alaska 326 

143.  Hat  in  fine  twined  weaving,  Haida  Indians,  British 

Columbia 327 

144.  Detail  of  figure  143 327 

145.  Twined  openwork  basket,   Haida  Indians 328 

146.  Detail  of  figure  145  .  .  . 328 

147.  Unfinished  basket,  Haida  Indians 329 

148.  Virginia  Indian  woman  weaving  a  basket 330 

149.  Detail  of  wrapped  basket,  Clallam  Indians. 332 

150.  Wrapped  twined  basket,  Makah  Indians,  Cape  Flattery  333 

151.  Bottom  of  Makah  basket 334 

152.  Detail  of  Nutka  hat 335 

153.  Cross-section  of  Nutka  hat 335 

154.  Checkerwork  basket,  Bilhula  Indians,  British  Columbia  338 

155.  Coiled  and  imbricated  basket 344 

156.  Imbricated  basket,  Yakima  Indians,  Washington.  .  .  .  351 

157.  Imbricated  basket,  Cowlitz  Indians 352 

158.  Twilled  basketwork,   Clallam   Indians,   Washington..  353 

159.  Water-tight  basket,  Clallam  Indians,  Washington.  .  .  .  355 

160.  Detail  of  figure  159 356 

161.  Twined  wallet,  Nez  Perce  Indians,  Idaho 360 

162.  Detail  of  figure  161 361 

163.  Linguistic  map  of  California 366 

164.  Old  feathered  baskets  from  Oregon 372 

165.  Tiny  coiled  basket,  Porno  Indians 390 

166.  Tiny  coiled  basket,  Porno  Indians 390 

167.  Coiled  basket,  Hoochnom  Indians,  California 391 

168.  Detail  of  figure  167 392 

169.  Twined  basket  bowl,  Klamath  Indians,  Oregon 393 

170.  Detail  of  figure  169 395 

171.  Carrying  basket,  McCloud  River  Indians,  California.  .  397 

172.  Grasshopper  basket,  Wikchumni  Indians,  California.  .  421 

173.  Detail  of  figure  172 422 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

TEXT 


PAGE 

174.  Coiled  bowl,  Coahuilla  Indians,  California  ...........  426 

175.  Inside  view  of  figure  174  ..........................  427 

176.  Square  inch  of  figure  174  ..........................  428 

177.  Coiled  bowl,  Coahuilla  Indians,  California  ...........  429 

178.  Twined  basket,  Dieguenos  Indians,  California  .......  430 

179.  Woman's  hat,  Ute  Indians,  Utah  ..................  434 

1  80.  Harvesting  fan,  Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ......  ........  435 

181.  Harvesting  fans,  Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ..............  436 

182.  Gathering  basket,   Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ............  437 

183.  Bottom  of  figure  182  .............................  438 

184.  Border  of  figure  182  ..............................  438 

185.  Carrying  basket,  Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ..............  439 

186.  Roasting  tray,  Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ...............  440 

187.  Coiled  jar,  Paiute  Indians,  Utah  ...................  441 

188.  Square  inch  of  figure  187  ..........................  442 

189.  Coiled  basket  jar,  Zufii  Indians,  New  Mexico  ........  451 

190.  Coarse  wickerwork,  Hopi  Indians,  Arizona  ..........  455 

191.  Ancient  basketry  gaming  wheel,  Pueblo  Indians  .....  458 

192.  Coiled  bowl,  Coyotero  Indians,  Arizona  .............  464 

193.  Basket  jar,  Apache  Indians  ........................  465 

194.  Coiled  basket  bowl,  Apache  Indians  ................  466 

195.  Coiled  plaque,  Navaho  Indians  ....................  467 

196.  Sacred  basket  tray,  Navaho  Indians  ................  468 

197.  Border  of  figure  196  ..............................  469 

198.  Gourd  in  coiled  network,  Pima  Indians,  Arizona  .....  473 

199.  Coiled  bowl,  Pima  Indians  ........................  475 

200.  Coiled  bowl,  Pima  Indians  ........................  476 

201.  Coiled  bowl,  Pima  Indians  ........................  477 

202.  Coiled  bowl,  Pima  Indians  ........................  478 

203.  Coiled  granary,  Pima  Indians  ......................  479 

204.  Carrying  net,  Araucanian  Indians  ..................  490 

205.  Carrying  net,  Chiriqui,  Colombia  ..................  491 

206.  Detail  of  figure  205  ..............................  492 

207.  Ancient  Peruvian  work-basket  ....................  497 

208.  Detail  of  figure  207  ...............................  498 

209.  Detail  of  a  Peruvian  basket  .......................  498 

210.  Detail  of  a  Peruvian  basket  .......................  498 

211.  Detail  of  a  Peruvian  basket  ..................  .  .....  498 

212.  Ancient  coiled  basket  from  Chile  ...................  499 


INDIAN     BASKKTRY 


CHAPTER  VII 

ETHNIC  VARIETIES  OP  BASKETRY 

For  all  arts  belonging  to  humanity  have  a  common  bond  and  are 
included,  as  it  were,  in  the  same  kinship. — CICERO. 

THE  technical  processes,  the  decorations,  and  the  symbolism 
that  may  exist  in  the  single  basket  having  been  scrutinised, 
it  is  in  order  to  examine  the  geographic  distribution  of  these 
forms  in  relation  to  ethnology  and  environment.  Geography 
has  much  to  do  with  human  enterprises.  It  does  not  furnish 
the  ingenious  mind  nor  the  skilful  hand,  but  it  does  supply 
the  materials  for  their  exercise  and  set  bounds  in  which  the 
mind  and  hand  soon  discover  how  to  reach  their  best. 

America  was,  in  aboriginal  times,  unequally  occupied  by 
native  peoples.  On  the  Atlantic  slope  in  both  continents  vast 
areas  were  in  possession  of  single  linguistic  groups,  called 
families.  On  the  Pacific  slope  there  were  also  a  few  influential 
families,  but  the  rule  was  otherwise.  Wedged  in  among  the 
mountains,  wherever  there  was  an  inclosure  abounding  in  food 
supply,  there  were  crowded  what  seemed  to  be  shrivelled  rem- 
nants of  once  larger  peoples,  or  fragments  of  disrupted  families. 

At  once  arises  the  query,  Did  they  bring  with  them  and 
preserve  uncontaminated  the  stitches  and  patterns  of  their 
priscan  basketry  and  keep  the  ancient  models  unchanged? 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  they  did  not,  and  that  is  why  the  eth- 
nologist becomes  embarrassed  in  trying  to  harmonise  ethnology 
and  technology.  There  are,  notwithstanding,  certain  general 
effects  which  may  be  associated  with  definite  peoples. 

i.  In  the  eastern  region  the  prevailing  families  were  Algon- 
quian,  Iroquoian,  Muskhogean,  Caddoan,  and  a  few  remnants 
of  smaller  ones,  in  some  instances  numbering  at  present  less 

255 


256  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

than  a  hundred  persons.  The  Siouan  and  other  buffalo- 
hunting  tribes  on  the  plains  will  be  slightly  noticed  because 
the  hide  of  the  slain  animals  furnished  them  with  receptacles 
as  well  as  other  conveniences  of  life.  The  basketmakers  in 
their  territory  belonged  elsewhere. 

2.  In  the  Alaskan  region  an  interesting  state  of  affairs 
existed  with  reference  to  the  matter  here  investigated.     In 
the  interior  of  the  peninsula  are  the  Athapascan  (or  Tinn6) 
tribes.     Around  the  coast-line  dwell  members  of  the  Eski- 
mauan  family,  having  entirely  different  materials,  workman- 
ship, and  technical  processes.     It  will  be  seen  later  that  the 
Eskimo  as  a  whole  are  not  skilful  basketmakers.     There  has 
been  contact,  however,  between  the  two  linguistic  families. 
The  Aleutian  peoples  are  very  different  in  this  art  from  the 
Eskimo,  their  ware  being  among  the  most  highly  admired  on 
the  continent.     In  southeastern  Alaska  the  Koloschan  family 
are  found,  who  are  different  from  the  Athapascans  in  the  in- 
terior of  the  peninsula  in  that  they  do  not  make  coiled 
basketry  at  all.    The  same  is  true  of  the  Haida  or  Skittagetan 
family,  in  the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands. 

3.  In  the  Fraser-Columbia  region,  including  the   drainage 
of  these  great  rivers,  the  Salishan  family,  the  Wakashan,  the 
Shahaptian,  and  the  Chinookan  are  the  present  basket-making 
families.     As  in  the  Siouan  country,  so  here,  a  few  small 
fragments  or  survivals  fill  in  the  gaps  and  waste  places,  but 
they  contribute  little  to  the  technical  processes  involved.     In 
the  discussion  of  basketry  in  this  province  a  special  character- 
istic will  be  brought  out. 

4.  The  California  region,  including  also  southern  Oregon, 
is  the  most  mixed  of  all  in  its  ethnology.     Many  stocks  of 
people  whose  languages  are  not  known  elsewhere,  and  many 
fragments  of  stocks  that  have  a  larger  existence  in  other  parts 
of  America,  are  wedged  into  the  mountain  valleys  and  drain- 
ages of  the  streams.     Nature  has  been  most  lavish  here  in  her 
materials,  and  the  finest  textile  plants  for  making  baskets  are 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  257 

to  be  found  in  California.  The  diversity  of  technic  is  almost 
as  great  as  that  of  language.  Few  styles  of  weaving  or  coiling 
exist  that  do  not  have  their  representatives  among  this  inter- 
minable labyrinth  of  valleys. 

5.  The  Desert,  or  Interior  region,  is  occupied  in  its  northern 
portion  by  the  great  Shoshonean  family,  which  extends  from 
the  forty-ninth  parallel  to  Costa  Rica,  pushes  its  way  over  the 
Rocky  Mountains  into  the  Mississippi  drainage,  and  across 
southern  California  to  the  Santa  Barbara  Islands  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  giving  and  receiving  technical  suggestions  on  its  way. 
In  the  southern  portion  of  this  interior  region,  Athapascan 
(both  Navaho  and  Apache),  Yuman,  and  Piman  tribes  are 
basketmakers. 

6.  The  sixth  region  includes  Middle  and  South  America, 
not  because  all  the  basketry  in  these  regions  is  on  the  same 
plane,  but  owing  to  the  small  collections  received  from  these 
quarters.     A  great  portion  of  it  is  in  the  torrid  zone,  where 
palm  leaf  and  tough  cane  and  reeds  await  the  basketmaker. 
There  will  be  missing  characteristics  of  the  North  American 
tribes,  and  also  local  weaves  will  appear  worthy  of  study.* 

Unlike  pottery,  this  fabric  is  not  destroyed  by  frost,  so  that 
wherever  textile  material  could  be  obtained  there  was  no 
meteorological  reason  why  the  basket  should  not  be  forth- 
coming. The  Athapascans  of  Alaska  and  northwestern  Canada, 
possessed  of  both  willow  and  spruceroot,  at  once  developed 
the  coiled  ware  which  their  kindred,  the  Apache,  are  still 
making  in  Arizona. 

East  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  in  the  Atlantic  drainage  of 
Canada  and  the  United  States,  at  the  present  time  checker 

*  The  author  acknowledges  that  many  statements  made  in  this  ethnic 
portion  of  the  work  are  at  second  hand  and  he  has  been  fortunate  in  being  able 
to  consult  men  of  expert  information.  The  Hudson  and  the  Merriam  col- 
lection, in  Washington  City,  the  Benham,  Tozier,  Emmons,  Teit,  Long,  Whit- 
comb,  McLeod,  and  others  of  the  west  coast,  have  been  placed  cheerfully  at 
his  disposal.  To  Mr.  C.  C  Willoughby,  Dr.  Boas,  Mr.  Pepper,  Dr.  Dorsey, 
Dr.  Dixon,  Dr.  Kroeber,  and  others  mentioned  in  these  pages,  he  is  indebted 
for  constant  favours.  He  hopes  that  errors  will  be  condoned. 


258  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

and  willow  work  are  practised  almost  universally;  but  in  the 
mounds  of  the  Ohio  Valley  quite  well-diffused  twined  ware  is 
found.  The  Gulf  province  afforded  excellent  cane  (Arun- 
dinaria  macrosperma,  Arundinaria  gigantea,  Arundinaria  tecta) , 
and  here,  both  in  ancient  times  and  in  modern,  diagonal  plaiting 
of  basketry  and  matting  was  prevalent  in  all  tribes.  The 
Plains  region  in  its  central  portion  relied  chiefly  on  the  hide 
of  animals  for  its  receptacles.  But  around  its  borders  will  be 
found  intrusive  processes  of  manufacture  in  twined,  diagonal, 
and  coiled  workmanship. 

On  its  Pacific  slope  North  America  is  the  home  of  basketry. 
From  Attu,  the  most  westernmost  island  of  the  Aleutian 
chain,  to  the  borders  of  northern  Mexico,  is  to  be  found  practi- 
cally every  type  of  this  art. 

In  Middle  America,  including  southern  Mexico  and  the 
Central  American  States,  pottery  was  exalted  among  recepta- 
cles, and  excellent  fibers  usurped  the  function  of  the  coarser 
pliable  materials  of  basketry. 

Owing  to  differences  of  climate,  rainfall,  and  other  char- 
acteristics of  environment,  the  materials  for  basketry  vary 
greatly  from  region  to  region  throughout  America,  and  this  in 
spite  of  all  ethnic  considerations.  Again,  the  motives  for  the 
use  of  basketry  differ  from  place  to  place,  so  much  so  that 
peoples  of  one  blood  make  one  ware  in  this  place  and  another 
in  that.  Finally,  however,  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the 
ideas,  utilitarian  and  artistic,  in  the  minds  of  the  manu- 
facturers themselves,  serve  to  bestow  special  marks  upon  the 
work  of  different  tribes  so  as  to  give  to  them  ethnic  or  national 
significance  under  any  circumstances.  In  the  following 
chapters  the  typical  forms  of  the  various  families  of  Indians 
will  be  illustrated. 

Were  there  no  mixture  of  tribes,  it  might  be  possible  to 
state  in  every  case  the  maker  of  each  specimen  from  the  technic 
and  the  ornamentation,  though  this  opinion  must  be  held  with 
reserve.  Throughout  the  entire  continent  the  practice  of 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  259 

capturing  women  was  common;  in  each  case  the  stolen  ones 
carried  to  their  homes  the  processes  they  had  been  familiar 
with  in  their  native  tribe.  The  Twana  Indians  on  Puget 
Sound  practice  ten  different  methods  of  basket-making;  the 
Porno  Indians  have  eight  processes;  the  Hopi  Indians  of 
Arizona  have  at  least  five.  It  is  well  known  that  these  tribes 
belong  to  synthetic  families.  In  order  to  comprehend  the 
extent  of  this  relationship  between  the  tribe  and  the  art,  the 
various  basket-making  groups  will  be  defined  and  the  types  of 
their  work  illustrated.  (See  Plates  154,  155.) 

The  mixing  of  basketwork  from  the  travelling  about  of 
women  is  well  illustrated  in  the  story  of  Maria  Narcissa,  told  by 
E.  L.  McLeod,  of  Bakersfield,  California.  Maria  was  born  at  San 
Gabriel  Mission  and  brought  up  in  Tejon  Canyon.  There  she 
retained  the  knowledge  of  her  native  speech  and  learned  the 
dialects  of  the  surrounding  tribes.  She  married  an  American, 
reared  and  educated  a  large  family  of  children,  and  is  still 
living.  On  her  testimony,  tribes  from  the  north  as  far  up  as 
Tule  River  would  come  down  to  Tejon  for  social  and  religious 
purposes,  hold  great  feasts  and  dances,  and  gamble  on  the 
gaming  plaques.  Parties  came  longer  journeys  from  San 
Fernando;  San  Gabriel,  Ventura,  Santa  Barbara,  and  Santa 
Ynez,  and  Mr.  McLeod  finds  undoubted  evidences  of  these 
meetings  in  the  technic  and  the  decorations  on  basketry. 
(See  Plates  115-116.) 

From  the  Tule  River  country  there  came  the  beautiful 
flexible  work,  an  improvement  on  the  Fresno  ware.  But  the 
Tejon  basketry  excelled,  the  pieces  were  better  finished,  there 
was  more  emulation,  a  greater  variety  of  patterns,  showing 
the  influence  of  both  north  and  south. 

There  was  trading  of  materials  likewise,  for  you  will  see 
fine  old  pieces  from  the  caves  on  the  Tejon  with  mission  bot- 
toms and  Tejon  tops,  also  old  specimens  from  caves  in  Santa 
Barbara  County  which  were  made  in  Tejon.  The  student  of 
basketry  suffers  another  embarrassment  in  common  with  the 


260  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

naturalist,  namely,  the  fact  that  the  place  of  procuring  a  speci- 
men is  not  the  same  as  that  of  its  origin.  Finally,  a  basket  may 
have  two  or  more  names  that  are  really  synonyms,  as  Tulare, 
Yokut,  and  Mariposan,  and,  finally,  while  in  a  collection  like  that 
of  Doctor  Merriam  the  student  cannot  go  astray  for  his  tribe, 
in  the  myriads  of  desultory  gatherings  the  owners  themselves 
are  never  sure  of  the  source. 

LIST  OP  BASKET-MAKING  TRIBES 

The  following  list  includes  the  names  of  those  tribes  known 
to  collectors  as  makers  of  any  kind  of  basketry,  especially  in 
North  America,  together  with  the  linguistic  families  to  which 
they  belong,  and  their  locations. 

Abenaki,  Algonquian  family,  Maine  and  Canada. 

Aleut,  Eskimauan  family,  Aleutian  Islands. 

Algonquian  family,  northern  frontier  and  Canada,  many  tribes. 

Apache,  Athapascan  family,  See  Chiricahua,  Jicarilla,  Mescalero, 
San  Carlos,  White  Mountain,  in  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and 
Oklahoma. 

Apache- Yuma,  Yuman  family,  Palomas,  Yuman  County,  Ari- 
zona. 

Arapaho,  Algonquian  family,  Shoshoni  Agency,  Wyoming;  and 
Oklahoma. 

Arikara,  Caddoan  family,  Fort  Berthold,  North  Dakota. 

Ashochimi,  Yukian  family,  near  Healdsburg,  California. 

Atsuge.     See  Hat  Creek,  branch  of  Pit  Rivers. 

Attakapa,  Attakapan  family,  southern  Louisiana. 

Attu  Island.     See  Aleut. 

Auk,  Koluschan  family,  Gastineaux  Channel,  southeastern 
Alaska. 

Basket  Makers,  Ancient  Shoshonean  family,  Grand  Gulch, 
southeastern  Utah. 

Bella  Coola.     See  Bilhula.     Bella  Bella. 

Bilhula,  Salishan  family,  northwestern  British  Columbia. 

Cahuilla.     See  Coahuilla. 

Calapooia,  or  Kalapuya. 

Calpella,  Kulanapan  family,  Ukiah,  California. 

Carriers.     See  Thompson  Indians. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  261 

Cayuse,  Waiilatpuan  family,  Umatilla  Agency,  Oregon. 

Chaves  Pass  Ruin,  Hopi  pueblo,  Arizona. 

Chehalis,  Salishan  family,  Chehalis  River,  Washington. 

Chemehuevi,  Shoshonean  family,  southern  Arizona  and  Cali- 
fornia boundary. 

Cherokee,  Iroquoian  family,  North  Carolina  and  Indian  Territory 

Chetimachas,  Chetimachan  family,  Louisiana.  Also  written 
Shetimachas. 

Chevlon  Ruins,  Hopi  pueblo,  northeastern  Arizona. 

Chickasaw,  Muskhogean  family,  Indian  Territory. 

Chilcotin,  Athapascan  family,  Tsilkotinneh  or  Chilkyotins, 
distinct  from  Carriers,  British  Columbia. 

Chilkat,  Koluschan  family,  southeastern  Alaska. 

Chinook,  Chinookan  family,  southeastern  lower  Columbia  River, 
Washington. 

Chippewa,  Algonquian  family,  northern  United  States. 

Chiricahua  Apache,  Athapascan  family,  Arizona  and  Oklahoma. 

Choctaw,  Muskhogean  family,  Louisiana. 

Chukchansi,  Yokut  tribe,  Mariposan  family,  Sierra  region,  Cali- 
fornia, between  Fresno  Creek  and  San  Joaquin  River. 

Clallam,  Salishan  family,  Washington. 

Clatsop,  Chinookan  family,  Clatsop  County,  Oregon. 

Coahuilla,  Shoshonean  family,  Coahuilla,  Kawia,  Kauvuya, 
Agua  Caliente,  Santa  Rosa,  Cabezon,  Torres,  Twenty-nine 
Palms,  and  Cahuilla  reservations,  California;  also  Saboba, 
southern  California. 

Cocahebas,  Shoshonean  family,  Burr  Valley,  California. 

Coconinos.     See  Havasupai,  Yuman  family. 

Cocopa,  Yuman  family,  near  Mexican  boundary,  Arizona,  and 
Lower  California. 

Comanche,  Shoshonean  family,  Indian  Territory. 

Concow,  Pujunan  family,  Round  Valley,  California. 

Coos,  Kusan  family,  Coos  County,  Oregon. 

Coquille,  Kusan  family,  Coos  County,  Oregon. 

Couteau.     See  Thompson  Indians. 

Cowlitz,  Salishan  family,  Cowlitz  River,  Washington. 

Coyotero  Apache,  Athapascan  family,  southern  Arizona. 

Coyuwee.     See  Paiutes. 

Creeks,    Muskhogean    family,  Southern   States    and    Indian  Tc 
ritory. 

Dieguenos,    Yuman     family,     San     Diego     County,     California 


262  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Capitan    Grande,  Sequan,  Santa  Ysabel,  Campo,    Cuyamaka, 

and  Morongo  reservations. 
Diggers,  Pujunan  family   (a  popular  name  applied  to  vegetarian 

tribes),  California,  east  of  the  Sacramento.     See  Maidu. 
Eel  Rivers,  Athapascan  family.     See  Flonko. 
Eskimo.     Eskimauan  family,  Arctic  America. 
Flathead,  Salishan  family,  misnomer  for  Salish. 
Flonko  or  Lolonkuh,  Athapascan  family,  Eel  River,  California. 
Fraser  River,  Salishan  family,  British  Columbia. 
Galice  Creek,  Athapascan  family.     Siletz  reservation,  Oregon. 
Gallinomero,  Kulanapan  family,  Cloverdale,  California. 
Garotero,  Athapascan  family.     (Same  as  Coyotero.) 
Gualala,  Kulanapan  family,  Mendocino  County,  California. 
Haeltzuk,  Wakashan  family,  British  Columbia. 
Haida,    Skittagetan    family,    Southern    Alaska,    Dall,  Prince    of 

Wales  Islands,  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  and  British  Columbia. 
Hat  Creek,  Palaihnihan  family,  northeastern  California,  branch  of 

Pit  Rivers. 

Havasupai,  Yuman  family,  Cataract  Canyon,  Arizona. 
Hoh,  Chimakuan  family,  Neah  Bay,  Washington. 
Homolobi,  ancient  ruin  near  Winslow,  in  Arizona. 
Hoochnom,  Yukian  family,  Round  Valley,  California,  Eel  River. 
Hoonah,  Koluschan  family,  Cross  Sound,  Alaska. 
Hootz  ah  tar,  Kaluschan  family,  Alaska. 
Hopi,    Shoshonean    or    Hopian    family,    Pueblos,    northeastern 

Arizona.     Wrongly  Moki. 
Hualapai.     See  Walapai. 

Huicholes,  Piman  family,  Zacatecas,  etc.,  Mexico. 
Hupa,  Athapascan  family,  Trinity  River,  California. 
Iroquois,  Iroquoian  family,  northern  frontier  and  Canada. 
Jicarilla    Apache,    Athapascan    family,    northern    New    Mexico, 

Jicarilla  Agency. 
Kabinapo    Porno,    Kulanapan    family,    Clear    Lake,    California, 

western  part. 
Karok,  or  Cahroc,  Quoratean  family,  Klamath  River,  California, 

Lower  Salmon  River,  and  down  Klamath  to  a  few  miles  above 

Waitspeh. 

Kaweah,  Mariposan  family,  middle  California,  not  Coahuilla. 
Klamath,  Lutuamian  family,  Klamath  County,  Oregon. 
Klikitat,  Shahaptian  family,  Yakima    Reservation,  Washington, 

Klikitat  County,  Oregon. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  263 

Kohonino,  Yuman  family,  near  the  Havasupai. 

Kwakiutl,  Wakashan  family,  British  Columbia. 

Lillooet,  Salishan  family,  western  British  Columbia. 

Little    Lakes,    Kulanapan    family,    Round    Valley    Reservation, 

California. 

Lolonkuh,  Athapascan  family,  Eel  River,  California. 
Luiseno    or    San    Luis    Rey    Mission,    Shoshonean    family,  Mesa 
Grande,  Potrero,  Temecula,  Rincon,  Los  Coyotes,  Pauma,  and 
Pala  reservations,  villages  at  San  Luis  Rey,  and  San  Felipe, 
California. 

Lummi,  Salishan  family,  north  Puget  Sound,  Washington. 
McCloud  or  Winnemem,  Copehan  family,  northern  California. 
Maidu,  Pujunan   family,  east   of    Sacramento   River,  California, 
Sacramento  to   Honey  Lake,  from  Big  Chico  Creek  to  Bear 
River,  California. 

Makah,  Wakashan  family,  Cape  Flattery,  Washington. 
Makhelchel,  Copehan  family,  Clear  Lake,  California. 
Man  dans,  Siouan  family,  North  Dakota. 
Maricopa,  Yuman  family,  southern  Arizona. 
Massawomekes,  Iroquoian  family,  on  northern  Chesapeake. 
Mattoal,   Athapascan   family,    northwestern   California. 
Mayas,  Mayan  family,  Yucatan  and  lands  adjacent. 
Melicite,  Algonquian  family,  Quebec  and  New  Brunswick. 
Menomini,  Algonquian  family,  northeast  Wisconsin. 
Mescalero  Apache,  Athapascan  family,  Mescalero  Agency,  eastern 

New  Mexico. 

Mew-as  or  Mu-was.     See  Miwok. 
Micmac,  Algonquian  family,  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and 

Quebec. 

Missions,  a  great  many  villages,  Shoshonean  and  Yuman  families, 
southern  California. 

Agua  Caliente  (Shoshonean),  a  rancheria  in  western  San 

Diego  County. 
Augustine  (Shoshonean). 
Coahuilla,  Kawia  (Shoshonean). 

Comoyei,  Yuman  family,  all  Yuma  dialects  between  Lower 
Colorado  River  and  Pacific  Ocean  and  32°  to  34°  north, 
Comoya,  Quemaya,  called  Dieguenos  on  the  coast. 
Cuchan,  Yuman  family,  Yumas  so  called. 
Cupania,  in  Agua  Caliente. 
Diegueno,    Yuman  family,   in   Capitan   Grande,    Campo, 


264  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Missions —  (Continued.) 

Cuyamaka,  Inaja,  Sequan,  Santa  Ysabel,  Mesa  Grande, 
San  Felipe,  Manzanita  villages. 
Kawia,  Shoshonean  family.     See  Coahuilla. 
Matayhoa,  possibly  the  Diegueno  village  of  Mataguay,  in 

western  part  of  San  Diego  County. 
Piute,  Shoshonean  family,  at  Twenty-nine  Palms. 
Playanos,  Shoshonean  family,  coast  tribes  of  Coahuilla. 
Saboba    (School),    Shoshonean   family,   Tahktam   village, 

San  Jacinto  Valley. 

San  Felipe,  Yuman  family,  a  Diegueno  rancheria  of  this 
name  was  seventy  miles  northeast  of  San  Diego  in 
1883. 

San  Fernando,  Shoshonean  family,  related  to  San  Gabriel. 
San  Gabriel,  Shoshonean  family,  also  Kizh  dialect,  Tobik- 

har  of  Loew. 
San  Juan  Capistrano,  Shoshonean  family,  formerly  Netela 

dialect,  Gaitchim  of  Loew,  called  Juanenos. 
San  Lucania,  Shoshonean  family,  also  Cabezon,  Potrero, 
Pala,  Pauma,  Rincon,  Temecula,    Puerto  de  la  Cruz, 
Puerta  Ygnacia,  Torris,  and  Matajaui. 
San  Luis  Rey  (de  Francis),  Shoshonean  family,  formerly 

Kizh  dialect. 

Santa  Inez.     Same  character  of  baskets  as  Santa  Barbara. 
Santa  Rosa. 

Serrano,  Shoshonean  family,  Morongo,  San  Manuel,  the 
Serrafios  or  "mountaineers,"  formerly  Tahktam,  a  divi- 
sion of  Tabikhar. 

Takhtam  (men),  Shoshonean  family,  called  Serrafios,  dia- 
lect, Coahuilla. 

Tule  River,  remnant  of  Tejon. 
Yuma,  Yuman  family,  evidently  the  Cuchan  or  present 

Yumas. 
Miwok,  Moquelumnan    family,    California,    from    the    Sierra    to 

the  San  Joaquin  River,  from  Cosumne  to  the  Fresno. 
Modoc,  Lutuamian    family,    Klamath   Agency,    Oregon,    east   of 

Shasta,  north  to  Goose  Lake  Valley. 
Mohave,  Yuman  family,  between  Fort  Mohave  and  Ehrenberg, 

Lower  Colorado  River. 

Moki  or  Hopi  pueblos,  Shoshonean  family,  northeastern  Arizona. 
Monos,  Shoshonean  family,  sierras  east  of  Yosemite,  California. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  265 

Muckleshoot,  Salishan  family,  Puget  Sound,  Tulalip  Agency, 
Washington. 

Nakum,  Pujunan  family.     See  Maidu. 

Napa  or  Suisun  or  Solano,  Copehan  family,  Sacramento  River, 
California. 

Natano,  band  of  Hupa. 

Navaho,  Athapascan  family,  southern  Utah,  New  Mexico,  and 
Arizona. 

Navarros,  Kalanapan,  Punta  Arenas,  California. 

Nehalem,  Salishan,  Oregon. 

Newooah  (Nu-uah),  Shoshonean  family,  Paiute  Mountain,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Nez  Perce",  Shahaptian  family,  Nez  Perce*  Agency,  northern 
Idaho. 

Nims,  Shoshonean  family,  N.  fork,  San  Joaquin  River,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Nishinam,  Pujunan  family,  Sacramento  Valley,  California. 

Niskwalli,  Salishan  family,  or  Nisqualli,  Columbia  River, 
Washington. 

Nomelaki  or  Numlaki,  Copehan  family,  Round  Valley,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Nozis,  Yanan  family,  south  of  Pit  Rivers,  California. 

Nutka,  Wakashan  family,  West  Vancouver  Island.     See  Makah. 

Ojibwa,  Algonquian  family,  Michigan. 

Opata,  Sierra  Madre,  Sonora  and  Chihuahua. 

Oraibi,  Shoshonean  family,  a  Hopi  pueblo.     (See  Hopi). 

Paiutes,  Shoshonean  family,  Nevada  agencies,  Reno,  Carson,  and 
Wadsworth  on  central  route  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Company ; 
Tule  River  Reservation,  Kern  River,  White  River,  Poso  Creek, 
Sierras  near  Walker  Pass,  eastern  Nevada,  Pyramid  Lake, 
Schurz,  Hawthorne,  Virginia  City. 

Pakanepul,  Shoshonean  family,  South  Fork  of  Kern  River,  Calif- 
ornia. 

Panamint,  Shoshonean  family,  Death  Valley,  Inyo  County, 
California. 

Papago,  Piman  family,  south  of  Tucson,  Arizona,  and  Sonora, 
Mexico. 

Patawat,  Wishoskan  family,  Humboldt  Bay  to  Arcata,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Patwin,  Copehan  family,  Sacramento  River,  California. 

Pawnee,  Caddoan  family.  See  Arikara. 


266  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Penobscot,  Algonquian  family,  Old  Town,  Maine. 

Peruvian,  Kechuan  family,  Highlands  of  Peru. 

Pima,  Piman  family,  Gila  River,  Arizona. 

Pit  Rivers,  Palaihnihan  family,  Pit  River,  California. 

Porno,  many  subdivisions,  Kulanapan  family,  Mendocino  and 
Lake  counties,  California. 

Potter  Valley,  Kulanapan  family,  Round  Valley,  California. 

Pueblos:  of  the  Rio  Grande,  Tanoan,  and  Keresan  families;  those 
of  the  Zunian  family  are  in  New  Mexico ;  Shoshonean  pueblos 
are  in  northeastern  Arizona. 

Puyallup,  Salishan  family,  Puget  Sound,  Washington. 

Queets,  Chimakuan  family,  northwest  Washington. 

Quileute,  Chimakuan  family,  northwest  Washington. 

Quinaielt,  same  as  Quinaults,  Salishan  family,  west  Washington. 

Redwoods,  Yukian  family,  Round  Valley  Reservation,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Rees,  or  Arikara,  Caddoan  family,  North  Dakota. 

Rogue  Rivers,  Athapascan  family,  Grande  Ronde  Reservation, 
Oregon. 

Round  Valley  tribes.  See  Concow,  Little  Lakes,  Nomelaki,  Pit 
Rivers,  Redwoods,  Wailaki,  and  Yuki. 

Saboba  Mission,  Shoshonean,  southern  California. 

Salishan  family,  great  variety  of  technic  and  many  tribes, 
Washington  and  British  Columbia. 

San  Carlos,  Apache,  Athapascan  family,  southeastern  Arizona. 

San  Felipe  pueblo,  Keresan  family,  Rio  Grande  River,  New 
Mexico. 

Santa  Barbara  Mission,  Moquelumnan  family,  southwestern 
California. 

Santa  Rosa  Mission,  Yuman  family,  San  Diego  County,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Santa  Ysabel,  Yuman  family,  San  Diego  County,  California. 

Seminole,  Muskhogean  family,  Florida. 

Shasta,  Sastean  family,  in  Shasta  and  Scott  Valley,  Cali- 
fornia. 

Shoshoni,  Shoshonean  family,  Great  Interior  Basin,  Montana. 

Shushwap,  Salishan  family,  British  Columbia. 

Sia,  Keresan  family,  New  Mexico,  a  Rio  Grande  pueblo. 

Sikyatki,  ruin,  ancient  Hopi  pueblo,  northern  Arizona. 

Siletz,  Athapascan  family,  Siletz  Reservation,  Oregon. 

Sitka,  Kaluschan  family,  Alaska. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  267 

Siwash,  Chinook  jargon  for  "Savage,"  general  name  for  North- 
west Coast  Indians. 

Skagit,  Salishan  family,  North  Puget  Sound. 

Skokomish,  Salishan  family,  or  Twana,  upper  Puget  Sound, 
Puyallup  Agency,  Skokomish  Reservation,  Skokomish  River, 
Washington. 

Snohomish,  Salishan  family,  upper  Puget  Sound,  Tulalip 
Agency  and  reservation,  northeast  of  the  Skokomish. 

Solano.     See  Napa. 

Spokan,  Salishan  family,  Montana  and  Washington. 

Squaxin,  Salishan  family,  Puget  Sound. 

Suisun.     See  Napa. 

Tahchee,  tribe  of  Yokuts  on  Tulare  Lake. 

Tarahumara,  Piman  family,  Sierras  of  Chihuahua,  Mexico. 

Tarku,  Koluschan  family,  Tarku  Inlet,  Alaska. 

Tatu,  Yukian  family,  Round  Valley,  United  States  Indian 
Agency,  California. 

Tejon,  Tulares  of  Tejon  Pass,  Moquelumnan  family. 

Thompson  Indians,  Salishan  family,  also  Couteau  or  Knife 
Indians,  southern  interior  of  British  Columbia,  mostly  east  of 
Coast  Range,  in  valleys  of  Fraser,  Thompson,  and  Nicola 
rivers. 

Tillamuk,  Salishan  family,  Tillamook  County,  Oregon. 

Tinne",  Athapascan  family,  name  for  tribes  in  Alaska  and 
Canada. 

Tlinkit,  Koluschan  family,  southern  Alaska. 

Tolowa,  Athapascan  family,  Crescent  City,  California. 

Tonto  Apache,  Athapascan  family,  southern  Arizona. 

Towanhoo.     See  Twana. 

Tsinuk  or  Chinook,  Chinookan  family,  Columbia  River,  Wash- 
ington. 

Tulalip,  Salishan  family,  Tulalip  Reservation,  Washington. 

Tulares,    Moquelumnan    family,    Tule     River,    California. 

Tule  Rivers,  Mariposan  family,  southern  California. 

Twana,  Salishan  family,  Puget  Sound,  Washington. 

Ukie.     See  Yuki. 

Umatilla,  Shahaptian  family,  Umatilla  and  Morrow  counties, 
Oregon. 

Umpqua,  Athapascan,  Grande  Ronde,  Oregon. 

Ute,  Shoshonean,  in  Utah  under  many  names. 

Viard  or  Weeyot,  Wishoskan  family,  Eel  River,  California. 


268  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Waiam,  Shahaptian  family,  village  rather  than  tribe,  Des  Chutes 

Rivers,  Oregon. 

Wailaki,  Copehan  family,  Sacramento  Valley,  California. 
Walapai  or  Hualapai,  Yuman  family,  northwestern  Arizona. 
WallaWalla,  Shahaptian  family,  Umatilla  Agency,  Oregon. 
Wappo,  Yukian  family,  Alexander  Valley,  California. 
Warm  Spring  Apaches,  Athapascan,  Chiricahua,  Mexico. 
Wasco,  Chinookan  family,  The  Dalles,  Oregon. 
Washo,  Washoan  family,  Reno,  Carson,  and  Wadsworth,  on  central 

route   of   the   Southern    Pacific    Company,    western    Nevada, 

Genoa,  Gardenville   Washoe,  Franktown. 

-White  Mountain  Apache,  Fort  Apache  Agency,  eastern  Arizona. 
Wikchumni,    Yokiit    tribe,    Mariposan    family,    Kaweah    River, 

California. 

Wintun,  Copehan  family,  Sacramento  River,  California. 
Wuksatches,  Shoshonean  family,  north  of  Kaweah  River,  California. 
Wushqum,  Chiaookan,  Columbia  River,  Oregon. 
Yakima,  Shahaptian  family,  Washington. 
Yakutat,  Koluschan  family,  Yakutat  Bay,  southeast  Alaska. 
Yamhill,  Kalapooian  family,  Willamette  Valley,  Oregon. 
Yana  or  Nozi,  Yanan  family,  near  Redding,  California. 
Yaqui,  Piman,  Sonora,  Mexico. 
Yoalmani,  Yokut  tribe,  Mariposan  family ,  Tule  River  Reservation, 

California. 
Yoerkali,  Yokut  tribe,  Mariposan  family,  Tule  River  Reservation, 

California. 

Yokaia,  Kulanapan  family,  Ukiah  Valley,  California. 
Yokuts,  Mariposan  family,  mid-California. 
Yuki  or  Ukie,  Yukian  family,  Round  Valley,  California. 
Yurok,  Weitspekan  family,  Klamath  River,  California. 
Zuni,  Zunian  family,  western  New  Mexico. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 

EASTERN  NORTH  AMERICA 

For  thus  the  tale  was  told 

By  a  Penobscot  woman 

As  she  sat  weaving  a  basket, 

A  basket  or  abaznoda 

Of  that  sweet-scented  grass 

Which  Indians  dearly  love. 

— CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND. 

EASTERN  North  America  will  include  the  tribes  east  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  Many  of  them  are  now  basketmakers, 
but  archeology  is  doing  excellent  service  in  helping  to  com- 
plete a  map  of  this  area  in  order  to  determine  the  distribution 
of  the  various  technical  processes  that  obtained  in  aboriginal 
times.  The  few  types  of  the  art  that  now  survive  must  not 
be  taken  as  covering  the  ground  of  ancient  weaves.  The 
recovery  of  the  latter  by  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology, 
the  Peabody  Museum,  and  other  explorations,  is  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  contributions  of  the  spade  to  the  ethnologist. 
Though  basketry  was  anciently  made  of  grass,  hemp  fiber,  bark, 
young  stalks,  and  sap  wood,  and  for  that  reason  is  the  most  perish- 
able of  human  manufactures,  under  favourable  conditions  salt 
mines,  nitrous  caves,  the  desert's  aridity,  metallic  earths,  and 
even  fire  have  kindly  preserved  enough  of  the  delicate  textures 
to  reveal  the  processes  of  weaving  in  vogue  many  centuries  ago. 

Indian  women  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  used  to  decorate 
the  outsides  of  clay  vessels  by  pressing  string  and  basketry 
products  on  the  soft  material  before  burning.  Thus  they 
preserved  the  record  of  the  art  for  all  time.  By  applying 
modeller's  clay  to  these  ancient  fragments  the  texture  is  at 
once  revealed.  In  Popular  Science  Monthly*  will  be  seen 
account  of  experiments  with  these  sibylline  shards,  by  George 
E.  Sellers.  William  H.  Holmes  simultaneously  made  larger 
investigations  and  published  accounts  of  experiments  by 
him  on  Mound  Builders,  and  other  ancient  pottery  of  this 
area.t  He  carefully  washed  the  fragments  of  their  ware  and 

*Vol.  XI,  1877,  p.  573. 

t  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1884,  pp.  393-43$- 


270  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

made  casts  of  the  outer  surface.  The  result  was  astonishing. 
Natural  forces  had  eaten  away  and  greatly  obscured  the  marks 
of  textiles  on  the  outside  surface  of  the  shards,  but  in  the 
bottom  of  the  cavities,  filled  for  centuries  with  earth,  the  im- 
pressions have  been  carefully  preserved,  and  "the  manner  in 
which  the  fabric  in  all  its  details  of  plaiting,  netting,  and 
weaving  was  constructed  can  be  brought  out  quite  as  graphic- 
ally as  though  one  were  examining  the  surface  of  the  original 
vessels. "  On  the  surfaces  of  rocks  the  paleobotanist  discovers 
the  delicate  impressions  of  leaves.  In  these  indellible  lines  he 
reads  the  names  of  species  of  trees  that  grew  millenniums  ago. 
So,  through  these  impressions  on  potsherds,  the  archeologist 
is  able  to  discover  lost  arts  of  whose  existence  all  other  evi- 
dence has  perished.  (See  Plate  107.) 

All  along  our  northern  frontier  and  in  many  parts  of  Canada 
the  Iroquois  and  Chippewa  now  fabricate  baskets  from  the 
ash,  birch,  linden,  and  other  white  woods  and  the  vernal  or 
sweet  grass  (Savastana  odorata) .  The  method  of  manufacture 
is  invariably  the  same;  it  is  the  plainest  in-and-out  checker 
and  wicker  weaving.  (See  Plates  119  to  121.)  The  basketry 
is  far  from  monotonous,  however,  for  the  greatest  variety  is 
secured  by  difference  of  form,  of  colour,  of  the  relative  size  of 
the  parts,  and  of  ornamentation.  In  form  the  baskets  run 
the  whole  gamut,  as  among  the  Haida  and  Makah,  guided  by 
the  maker's  fancy  and  the  demands  of  trade.  These  Indians 
all  live  on  the  border  of  civilisation  and  derive  a  large  revenue 
from  the  sale  of  their  wares.  The  colours  are  of  native  manu- 
facture— red,  yellow,  blue,  and  green,  alternating  with  the 
natural  shades  of  the  wood.  To  begin  with  the  rudest,  let  us 
take  a  dozen  or  sixteen  strips  of  paper  half  an  inch  wide  and 
cross  them  so  as  to  have  one  half  perpendicular  to  the  other 
half,  woven  in  checker  at  the  center,  and  extending  to  form 
the  equal  arms  of  a  cross.  Bend  up  these  arms  perpendicular 
with  the  woven  checker  and  pass  a  continuous  splint  similar 
to  the  framework  round  and  round  in  a  continuous  coil  from 


Plate  1 19.     See  page  270 

ALGONKIN  CHECKER  AND  WICKER  BASKETRY,  EASTERN  CANADA 
AND  UNITED  STATES 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  271 

bottom  to  the  top.  Fit  a  hoop  of  wood  to  the  top,  bend  down 
the  upright  splints  over  this,  and  sew  the  whole  together  with 
a  whipping  of  splint,  and  you  will  have  the  type  basket.  (See 
figs.  9  and  10  on  Plate  119.)  Now,  by  varying  the  width  of 
the  splint  used  to  cover  the  sides,  a  great  difference  of  appear- 
ance is  secured.  The  complete  operation  among  the  Menomini 
was  studied  out  by  W.  J.  Hoffman,*  and  will  be  seen  in  figs,  no 
to  114.  In  the  National  Museum  are  baskets  made  of  uni- 
formly cut  splints  not  over  one-sixteenth  of  an  inch  in  width. 
Finally,  the  Algonkin,  as  well  as  the  Southern  Indians,  have 
learned  to  decorate  baskets  with  a  great  variety  of  rolls,  look- 
ing much  like  the  napkins  on  the  table  of  a  hotel.  The  weaver 


FIG.  no. 
ASH  LOG  FOR  MAKING  SPLINTS. 

Menomini  Indians. 
After  W.  J.  Hoffman. 

draws  a  splint  under  the  warp  stick,  gives  it  a  turn  up  and 
down,  or  two  turns  in  different  directions,  and  draws  the  loose 
end  tightly  under  the  next  warp  stick  but  one.  This  operation 
is  repeated,  forming  around  the  basket  one  or  more  rows  of 
projecting  ornaments.  Morgan  bears  testimony  to  the  skill 
of  the  Iroquois  women  in  the  art.f 

The  basket  woman  at  her  work  sits  upon  the  ground  in 
front  of  her  lodge,  or  frequently  before  a  little  booth  or  shelter — 
the  first  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  artist's  studio.  The 
materials  which  she  gathered  long  ago  with  much  pains,  and 
has  been  hoarding  up,  are  within  easy  reach.  Her  hands  and 
her  teeth  are  both  available  in  her  work,  aided  by  only  a  small 
supply  of  tools.  A  number  of  Indian  women  at  work  will  be 
seen  in  different  connections  throughout  this  paper. 

*  Fourteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896,  p.  260. 
t  The  League  of  the  Iroquois,  1851,  pp.  vi~5S. 


272 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


Plate  1 20  shows  Caroline  Masta,  an  Abenaki  Indian  woman 
from  Pierreville,  Canada,  seated  in  her  humble  laboratory  at 
Belmar,  New  Jersey.  Her  materials  are  of  black  ash  (Fraxinus 
nigra)  and  sweet  grass  (Savastana  odorata) .  The  former  has  been 
worked  out  by  machinery  in  Canada,  and  is  piled  up  around 
her;  the  latter  is  gathered  and  braided  by  her  relatives,  and  sent 
to  her  all  ready  for  the  last  step  in  manufacture.  This  Indian 
woman  conducts  a  thriving  business, 
not  being  able  to  make  up  ware  as  fast 
as  there  is  demand  for  it.  Specimens 
of  her  work  are  shown  in  Plate  119, 
photographed  by  Herbert  B.  Rowland. 
To  illustrate  more  fully  the  sur- 
vival of  the  old  art  in  the  new  era, 
Plate  121  represents  three  Chippewa 
women  near  Saginaw,  Michigan,  mak- 
ing splint  baskets.  They  are  seated  no 
longer  in  the  midst  of  wretchedness, 
but  in  an  apple  orchard.  The  clothes- 
line and  the  receptacles  filled  with 
fruit  mark  the  changed  life.  It  will 
be  noticed,  also,  that  the  woman  on 

FIG.    HI. 

WOODEN  MAL-  the    left  is    using   for  her  splints  a 
LOOSENING  gauge  set    with    metal    blades.     In- 
deed, the  broad  strips  lying  on  the 
ground  were  worked  out  by  machinery.     Checker- 
work    and    wickerwork    are    the  only    forms   of 
technic  practised   by   these    Chippewas.     It  will 
not  be  assumed  by  any  one  that  the  improvement 
in  environment  has  redounded  to  the  benefit  of  r 

13  Ao  iVE*  IMA  K.- 

the  savage  art.  The  baskets  are  the  common  frame     ER'S  KNIFE 
ware,  and  often  the  best  of  them  bear  no  compari- 
son in  refinement  with  the  work  of  their  most  savage 
sisters  on  the  West  coast.     Photographed  by  Harlan  I.  Smith. 
The  acme  of  northern  Algonkin  weaving  is  in  twilled 


OF  NATIVE 
WORKMAN- 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OP   BASKETRY  273 

matting.  The  operation,  technically,  is  just  on  the  border 
between  free-hand  plaiting  and  loomwork.  Plate  122  is  a 
mat  plaited  by  a  Chippewa  squaw,  about  fifty  years  old,  at 
Grand  Marais,  Minnesota.  It  is  of  cedar  bast  made  in  strips  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  wide,  and  is  in  three  colours — one  the 
natural  tinge  of  the  material  and  the  other  two  dyed.  The 
interesting  features  are,  first,  that  the  weaving  is  done  from 
below  upward,  as  in  the  Haida  basketry,  and  in  the  work 
carried  on  by  Virginia  Indians  in  the  days  of  John  Smith. 
A  small  rod  or  stiff  cord  of  bark  is  suspended  by  means  of 
eight  loops  from  a  pole  resting  on  two  forked  sticks.  This  is 
to  give  free  motion  to  the  woman's  hands.  Over  this  the  warp 
strings  are  suspended  freely.  The  Chilkat  blanket  weaver, 
also,  as  will  be  seen,  has  no  other  machinery.  For  a  few  rows 


FIG.  113. 
COIL  OF    BASKET  STRIPS. 

the  weaving  is  simple  checkerwork  of  the  plainest  kind,  and 
then  begins  a  series  of  twilled  patterns  over  two  and  under 
two.  But  even  this  simplest  technic  so  lends  itself  to  charming 
effects  of  light  and  shade  that  there  is  not  a  monotonous  square 
inch  on  the  surface.  Another  band  of  plain  weaving  is  followed 
by  zizgag  and  angular  work,  inclosing  lines  and  squares, 
giving  birth  to  a  very  pleasing  effect.  Some  of  the  oldest 
pictures  preserved  in  the  early  chronicles  of  the  Algonkin 
Indians,  to  whom  the  Chippewa  belong,  show  them  weaving 
in  exactly  the  same  fashion. 

The  mat  described  above  was  made  for  Captain  R.  D. 
Gaillard,  U.  S.  A.,  in  a  single  day,  the  work  beginning  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  the  finished  product  being  delivered 


274 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


two  miles  away  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.     It  is  six  feet 
five  inches  long  and  four  feet  five  inches  wide. 

The  Menomini  Indians  of  the  Algonquian  family,  living  in 
northern  Wisconsin,  are  quite  expert  in  various  forms  of 
basketwork  and  hand-weaving.  Mats  are  woven  from  the 
leaves  of  rushes,  flags  or  cattails,  and  cedar  bark.  They  are 
for  roofing  temporary  structures,  such  as  medicine  lodges,  for 
partitions,  floor  mats  and  wrappings,  and  for  various  purposes 
in  the  canoes.  The  leaves  and  stems  are  strung  together  by 

means  of  threads  made  of  basswood 
fiber.  In  this  they  imitate  a  kind 
of  textile  well  distributed  through- 
out North  America  formerly. 

The  mats  shown  on  Plates  21, 
22,  and  23  of  Dr.  Walter  J. 
Hoffmann's  paper*  on  this  tribe 
are  made  from  the  inner  bark  of 
the  cedar,  cut  in  strips  averaging 
one-half  inch  in  width,  in  mixed, 
twilled,  and  checker  weaving, 
which,  combined  with  the  native 
colour  of  the  material  and  dyed 
strips,  produce  the  greatest  vari- 
ety of  diaper  patterns.  They  do 
not  differ  essentially  from  Captain 
Gaillard's  mat  just  described. 

The  baskets  of  the  Menomini  resemble  those  of  the  eastern 
Canadian  Indians.  A  log  of  elm  wood  is  beaten  until  the  space 
between  the  annual  layers  of  growth  is  destroyed;  the  thin 
strips  are  then  pulled  off,  cut  to  a  uniform  width,  and  scraped 
as  smooth  as  possible.  At  present,  gauges  of  steel  are  used 
for  the  purpose.  The  weaving  is  done  in  checker,  twilled, 
and  wickerwork.  A  section  of  the  beaten  log,  showing  the 
annual  layers  loosened,  the  mallet  of  wood,  and  the  modern: 

*  Fourteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896,  p.  260. 


FIG  114. 
FINISHED  WICKER  BASKET. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  275 

knife,  resembling  the  "man's  knife"  throughout  all  the  north- 
ern tribes,  are  shown  in  figs,  no  to  112.  For  the  finer  kinds 
of  bagging  the  inner  bark  of  the  young  sprouts  of  basswood 
is  employed.  It  is  removed  in  sheets  and  boiled  in  water  with 
a  quantity  of  lye.  This  softens  the  fiber  and  prepares  it  for 
the  next  process,  which  consists  in  pulling  bunches  of  the  boiled 
bark  forward  and  backward  through  a  hole  in  the  shoulder 
blade  of  the  deer.  The  fiber  is  twisted  into  yarn  and  made 
into  cord  or  twine  by  winding  on  the  thigh  with  the  palm  of 
the  hand.  This  advance  in  the  preparation  of  the  textile 
elements  paves  the  way  for  twined  weaving. 

Fig.  i,  Plate  123,  is  an  example  of  hexagonal  weaving  in  a 
Mackenzie  River  snow-shoe  in  which  the  vertical  elements 
answering  to  warps  are  crossed  and  not  interlaced,  and  the 
fabric  is  bound  together  by  the  weaving  in  and  out  of  a  single 
rawhide  thong.  Fig.  2,  on  the  same  plate,  illustrates  the  next 
step  in  the  weaving,  and  is  suggestive  of  a  feature  in  the 
twilled  basketry  taken  from  graves  in  a  cemetery  at  Ancon, 
Peru,  namely,  the  method  by  which  a  bar  of  the  snow-shoe 
frame  enters  into  the  weaving  and  widens  the  meshes.  Most 
beautiful  effects  are  produced  on  the  surface  of  these  snow- 
shoes  by  the  different  methods  of  administering  the  warp. 
This  has  been  carefully  worked  out  by  John  Murdoch  in  his 
paper  upon  the  Eskimo  of  Point  Barrow,  Alaska,*  and  is 
referred  to  here  simply  to  show  how  the  methods  of  weaving 
in  basketry  are  to  be  seen  in  other  materials  for  other 
purposes. 

In  fig.  3,  same  plate,  the  warps  at  certain  points  in  the 
manipulation  are  twisted  in  pairs  about  each  other,  a  technical 
process  in  vogue  throughout  middle  America,  beginning  as  far 
north  as  the  Mohave  country  in  southern  Arizona.  It  might 
be  called  the  first  step  in  lace-making.  Fig.  4,  same  plate, 
introduces  another  element  of  complexity  wherein  the  warp 
elements,  instead  of  being  twisted  around  each  other,  are 

*  Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1892,  pp.  342-352. 


276  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

wrapped  once  or  twice  about  the  weft,  so  that  the  primitive 
lace  work  is  effected  both  vertically  and  horizontally. 

Charles  C.  Willoughby,  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  is  of  the  opinion  that  coiled  basketry  was  used 
among  the  Ojibwa  Indians  (Chippewa)  on  the  Great  Lakes 
before  contact  with  the  whites,  and  mentions  very  old  speci- 
mens now  in  the  possession  of  that  museum,  and  others  have 
been  seen  in  private  collections.  The  foundation  coils  are  of 
sweet  grass  and  about  one-quarter  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  In 
some  very  old  specimens  the  sewing  is  done  with  looped 
stitches,  being  continuous  from  the  edge  toward  the  center 
of  the  basket,  and  not  following  the  coils,  as  is  usual.  He  also 
finds  the  following  references  to  old  basketwork  of  the  New 
England  Indians.  (See  Plate  124.)  Gookin  is  quoted,  writing 
in  1674,  with  the  following  words: 

Several  sorts  of  baskets,  great  and  small,  some  of  them  hold 
four  bushels  or  more,  and  so  on  downward  to  a  pint.  .  .  .  Some 
of  these  baskets  are  made  of  rushes  and  some  of  bents  (coarse  grass) , 
others  of  maize  husks,  others  of  a  kind  of  silk  grass,  others  of  a  kind 
of  wild  hemp,  and  some  of  bark  of  trees.  Many  of  these  are  very 
neat  and  artificial,  with  the  portraitures  of  birds,  beasts,  fishes, 
and  flowers  upon  them  in  colours. 

The  soldiers  under  Captain  Underbill,  after  destroying  the 
Pequot  fort  in  Connecticut  in  1637,  brought  back  with  them 
"several  delightful  baskets."  Brereton  (1602)  found  baskets 
of  twigs  "not  unlike  our  osier."  Champlain  saw  corn  stored 
in  "great  grass  sacks."  Josselyn  writes,  "Baskets,  bags  and 
mats,  woven  with  bark  of  the  lime  tree  and  rushes  of  several 
kinds,  dyed  as  before,  some  black,  blue,  red,  yellow."  In 
1620  the  Pilgrims  found  on  a  cache  at  Cape  Cod  "a  great  new 
basket,  round  and  narrow  at  the  top,  and  containing  three  or 
four  bushels  of  shelled  corn,  with  thirty-six  goodly  ears  un- 
shelled."  The  New  England  Indians  were  probably  not  less 
expert  basketmakers  than  other  tribes  to  the  west  and  south. 
Does  not  the  fact  that  the  three  distinct  forms  of  weaving— 


Plate  123.    See  page  275 

HEXAGONAL  WEAVING,  WITH  TWINING,  ON  A  MACKENZIE  RIVER   SNOW-SHOE 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  277 

twined,  checker,  and  coiled — still  found  among  the  Ojibwas, 
seem  to  indicate  a  survival  of  these  types  from  prehistoric 
times  all  over  the  great  Algonkin  area?  A  few  years  back 
this  type  of  coiled  work  was  more  in  vogue  than  at  present. 
(C.  C.  Willoughby.) 

The  next  specimen  described  will  take  the  reader  a  long 
way  from  the  Great  Lakes.  Plate  125  shows  the  detail  of  a 
flat  coiled  basket  of  the  Eskimo  about  Cumberland  Inlet, 
eastern  Canada.  The  foundation  likewise  contains  a  bundle 
of  straws,  but  badly  put  together  and  sewed  with  sinew  thread, 
the  stitches  being  wide  apart  and  caught  beneath  a  few  straws 
of  the  preceding  coil.  The  bottom  is  flat,  and  the  walls  are 
drawn  in  so  as  to  give  a  compressed  shape.  This  interesting 
specimen  has  been  many  years  in  the  National  Museum,  and 
is  credited  to  Captain  C.  F.  Hall,  the  arctic  explorer.  It  may 
be  compared  with  others  of  the  same  type  from  the  southern 
Canadian  border.  Catalogue  No.  10,203;  height,  if  inches. 
A  much  later  specimen,  also  from  the  Eskimo,  is  shown  in  the 
next  plate. 

Plate  126  is  openwork  basketry  of  the  Eskimo  of  Davis 
Inlet,  eastern  Canada.  The  foundation  is  of  straw  and  the 
sewing  is  done  in  the  same  material,  the  stitches  merely  inter- 
locking. The  noteworthy  characteristic  of  the  basket  is  the 
slight  amount  of  sewing  in  certain  portions.  The  bottom  is 
not  unlike  the  work  of  the  western  Eskimo,  and,  indeed,  is  a 
typical  illustration.  There  is  a  little  splitting  of  stitches,  but 
probably  not  designed.  On  the  sides  the  openwork  is  pro- 
duced by  wrapping  the  foundation  with  straw  for  one-half  an 
inch  and  then  sewing,  as  in  ordinary  coiled  work,  the  angles 
to  the  coil  below.  This  may  be  compared  in  the  wrapping 
with  the  openwork  coiled  basketry  of  the  Kern  County  Indians 
in  California.  (See  fig.  196.)  Sewing  of  exactly  the  same 
style  is  to  be  found  in  northern  Europe,  and  the  suggestion 
is  made  that  this  particular  method  among  the  eastern  Eskimo 
is  an  acculturation.  To  come  nearer  home,  coiled  basketry  in 


278  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

raffia  that  is  taught  in  the  schools  is  largely  in  this  wrapped 
and  sewed  method.  The  Eskimo  of  this  area  were  for  centuries 
in  contact  with  Norse  settlers.  This  specimen  is  8^  inches  in 
length,  and  was  collected  by  L.  M.  Turner. 

Plate  127  gives  the  profile  and  inside  view  of  a  shallow 
coiled  basket  tray  of  the  Comanche  Indians,  living  on  the 
plains  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  used  principally  in  gam- 
bling. The  foundation  is  of  rods  and  splints,  the  sewing  with 
leaf  of  yucca  (Yucca  arkansana).  Especial  attention  is  in- 
vited to  the  furcate  stitches,  designedly  and  symmetrically 
split.  This  technic  relegates  the  basket  to  the  Ute  or  Shosho- 
nean  area,  west  of  the  Rockies.  The  Comanches  belong  to  the 
Shoshonean  family.  Its  diameter  is  nine  inches. 

In  the  National  Museum  are  four  small,  dish-shaped,  coiled 
gambling  baskets,  Catalogue  Nos.  6,342,  8,427,  and  153,932, 
gathered  from  the  Rees  or  Caddoan  Indians,  the  other  one  from 
the  Mandans,  who  are  Siouan.  These  baskets  are  made  from 
willow,  on  a  two-rod  foundation,  but  roughly  assembled  and 
sewed  with  splints  of  the  same  material.  The  borders  are 
all  well  done  in  false  braid.  No  more  interesting  specimens 
are  to  be  found  in  this  collection. 

There  are  four  other  gambling  baskets  of  the  same  type, 
but  of  different  material,  which  are  fairly  made.  The  founda- 
tion is  a  single  stem  of,  perhaps,  willow,  the  sewing  in  the 
leaves  of  yucca  (Yucca  arkansana').  Catalogue  Nos.  152,802, 
152,803,  165,246,  and  165,765,  were  gathered  from  the 
Cheyenne,  Arapaho,  and  Kiowan  Indians  in  Indian  Territory. 

Finally,  modern  pedagogy  has  found  in  the  long  leaves 
of  the  Georgia  pine  a  material  by  means  of  which  poor  people 
may  weave  a  little  of  the  sense  of  beauty  into  their  lives. 

Plate  128  is  a  covered  basket,  made  near  Augusta,  Georgia, 
from  the  leaves  of  the  pine,  by  a  native  Georgia  woman,  under 
the  instruction  and  patronage  of  Mrs.  Percy  H.  Babcock,  of 
Hudson,  Ohio.  The  sewing-material  is  tough,  brown  linen 
thread.  The  interesting  characteristic  in  this  specimen  is 


Plate  124.     See  page  276 

COILED  BASKETS  MADE  BY  OJIBWA  INDIANS  ABOUT  LAKE  SUPERIOR 

Photographs  by  C.  C.  Willoughby 


Plate  125.    See  page  277 

COILED  BASKETS  OF  GRASS  AND  SINEW,  FROM  ESKIMO  ABOUT 
CUMBERLAND  INLET,  EASTERN  CANADA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


^ 


r^r^impH^ 


Plate  126.    See  page  277 

OPENWORK  COILED  BASKET,  FROM  ESKIMO  ABOUT  DAVIS  INLET,  EASTERN 

CANADA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


Plate  127.     See  page  278 

COILED  GAMBLING  BASKET  OF  THE  COMANCHE  INDIANS,  INDIAN 
TERRITORY 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


Plate  128.     See  page  278 

COVERED  COILED  BASKET  IN  PINE  STRAW,  MADE  BY  A  NATIVE 
GEORGIAN  WOMAN 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  279 

the  undesigned  resemblance  between  the  stitching  and  that 
on  the  Hudson  Bay  Eskimo  specimen,  as  well  as  the  old  Chip- 
pewa  specimen  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  in  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Coiled  work,  as  was  shown  in  the  chapter  on  weaving, 
changes  to  lace  work  by  omitting  the  hard  foundation.  In 
this  Eastern  region  two  witnesses,  far  apart  in  time,  are  here 
to  testify  to  the  widespread  ancientness  of  a  coiled  work  now 
universal  in  tropical  America. 

Figs,  a  and  b,  Plate  129,  represent  the  method  of  weaving 
in  the  game  bags,  or  muskemoots,  of  the  Dog  Rib  and  other 
Athapascan  Indians  in  northwestern  Canada,  for  domestic 
purposes.  These  tribes  and  their  relatives  in  central  Alaska 
use  the  birch-bark  vessels  for  all  sorts  of  domestic  purposes. 
For  transportation  they  do  not  make  regular  baskets,  but 
buckskin  wallets,  in  which  a  process  of  coiled  weaving  now  to 
be  described  is  employed.  The  sides  and  borders  of  the  game 
bags  are  of  dressed  skin  of  moose  and  reindeer.  For  the  body 
of  the  bag  the  same  material  is  cut  into  fine  string  and  rolled. 
This  material  is  called  "babiche."  It  is  quite  evident  that 
before  the  introduction  of  the  steel  knife  this  material  was 
much  coarser,  as  may  be  known  not  only  from  the  game  bags, 
but  also  from  the  snow-shoes.  Fig.  6,  a  small  section  from 
one  of  the  muskemoots,  will  show  how  the  work  is  done.  The 
border  of  the  bag  on  its  lower  edge  is  pierced  at  equal  distances 
for  the  reception  of  the  first  row  of  weaving.  Through  these 
holes  the  babiche  is  strung  by  half  stitches,  or  what  is  called 
"button-hole  stitch."  The  work  proceeds  in  the  same  manner 
round  and  round  until  it  is  desirable  to  make  a  variation  in  the 
technical  process.  In  the  middle  of  the  drawing  it  will  be 
seen  how  this  is  done.  The  end  of  the  babiche  is  carried 
through  a  stitch  in  the  row  above  and  twisted  one  and  a  half 
times  about  itself.  As  many  turns  as  are  desirable  can  be 
made,  and  thus  the  ornamentation  may  be  varied.  This 
method  of  coiled  work,  the  first  described  in  the  table  of 
methods  (page  90),  does  not  occur  again  among  the  Indians 


280 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


until  the  borders  of  Mexico  are  reached,  where  the  tribes  in 
their  carrying  nets,  and  farther  south  in  their  wallets  and 
hammocks,  employ  precisely  the  same  method  of  workmanship. 
This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  2,023,  with  several  others  in  the 
United  States  National  Museum  from  the  Dog  Rib  Indians  of 
northwestern  Canada,  was  collected  by  Bernard  R.  Ross. 

Warren  K.  Moorehead  found  examples  of  the  muskemoot 
weaving  in  the  Hopewell  mounds,  Ohio.  There  was  nothing 
but  an  easy  portage  here  and  there  to  hinder  passage  by  water 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  to  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Hopewell  mounds.  Examples  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  in  the  Field  Columbian  Museum,  Chicago, 
prove  the  identity  of  technic.  (See  figs.  115  and  116.) 


FIG.  115. 

COILED  BASKETRA. 
Hopewell  Mound,  Ohio. 
After  C.  C.  Willoughby.  Peabody  Museum. 


FIG.  116. 

COILED  BASKETRY. 

Hopewell  Mound,  Ohio. 

After  C.  C.  Willoughby,   Peabody  Museum, 


There  is  a  general  impression  that  the  baskets  of  the  ordi- 
nary soft  character  described  were  used  by  these  eastern  peoples 
in  the  manufacture  of  pottery,  and  were  ruthlessly  destroyed 
in  the  burning,  but  Holmes 's  investigations  tend  to  show  that 
pliable  materials  had  been  almost  exclusively  employed.  In 
the  Pueblo  region  the  case  was  quite  different,  though  there 
is  no  evidence  of  the  burning  of  the  basket. 

The  twined  wallets  or  other  fabrics  used  were  removed 
before  the  vessel  was  burned  or  even  dried.  In  many  cases 
handles  and  ornaments  were  added  after  these  impressions 


Plate  129.    See  page  279 

COILED  AND  TWISTED  BABICHE  IN  DOG  RIB   GAME  BAGS, 
NORTHWESTERN  CANADA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National   Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  281 

were  made,  also  incised  designs  were  executed  in  the  soft  clay 
after  the  removal  of  the  textile.  • 

It  is  quite  evident  that  textile  impressions  were  used  to 
enhance  the  beauty  of  the  vessel,  not  to  support  the  clay  in 
process  of  construction. 

In  many  examples,  notably  the  salt  vessels  of  Saline  River, 
Illinois,  the  fabric  was  applied  after  the  vessel  was  finished, 
inasmuch  as  the  loose  threads  sag  or  festoon  toward  the  rim. 
Simple  cord  markings  arranged  to  form  patterns  have  been 
employed  on  many  examples.  And  in  those  cases  where 
basketry  textile  was  pressed  on  the  surface,  it  was  not  the 


FIG.  117. 

WICKERWORK  FROM  CAVE    IN    KENTUCKY. 
After  W.  H.  Holmes. 

common,  careless  weaving,  but  the  elegant  designs,  as  will 
be  seen  in  the  plates. 

The  textile  markings  on  pottery,  ancient  and  modern,  are 
of  five  classes: 

1.  Impressions  on  the  surface,  made  by  rigid  basketry, 
used  in  moulding  and  modelling. 

2.  Impressions  of  pliable  fabrics  on  the  soft  clay. 

3.  Impressions  of  woven  textures  used  over  the  hand  or 
on  a  modelling  or  malleating  implement. 

4.  Impressions  of  cords  wrapped  about  modelling  or  mal- 
leating paddles  or  rocking  tools. 


282 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


5.  Impressions  of  bits  of  cords  or  other  textile  units, 
singly  or  in  groups,  applied  for  ornament  only,  and  so  arranged 
as  to  give  textile-like  patterns.* 

If  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  classification  of  basket- 
making  methods  (page  6),  it  will  be  noticed  that  many  of  these 
are  to  be  found  in  the  ancient  basketware  impressed  on 
pottery  by  the  eastern  Indians.  Referring  to  Mr.  W.  H. 
Holmes 's  paper,  openwork  checker  weaving  is  very  rare  among 
impressions  on  clay.  Foster  illustrates  one  example  on  pottery 
from  a  mound  on  Great  Miami  River,  Butler  County,  Ohio. 


FIG.  118. 

CHARRED  FABRIC  FROM  MOUND. 
After  W.H.  Holmes. 


FIG.  119. 

CHARRED  FABRIC  FROM  MOUND. 
After  W.H.  Holmes. 


Checkerwork  of  the  close  type,  on  the  other  hand,  was  practised 
in  nearly  all  the  Atlantic  States,  upon  the  testimony  of  pottery 
fragments. 

From  potsherds  found  in  the  State  of  New  York,  closely 
packed  checkerwork  patterns  have  been  copied.  Charred 
fabrics  from  mounds  in  Ohio  reveal  the  coarsest  kinds  of 
oblique  checker  weaving.  Holmes  illustrates  an  example  in 
which  the  oblique  work  imitates  mat  plaiting  without  a  frame, 

*  W.  H.  Holmes,  American  Anthropologist  (N.  S.)f  III,  1901,  pp. 
397-403- 


Plate  130.     See  page  285 

CASTS  OF  POTSHERDS,  SHOWING  TWINED  WEAVING  AMONG  ANCIENT 
MOUND-BUILDERS.    AFTER  WILLIAM  H.  HOLMES 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  283 

worked  from  a  corner.  The  selvage  and  the  weft  cross  the 
texture  obliquely.* 

Not  only  checkerwork,  but  twilled  work  in  cane  and  in 
twine,  and  wickerwork  in  soft  material,  have  been  brought  to 
light  by  cave  explorations  in  the  Western  and  Southern 
States.  In  the  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Eth- 
nology, Holmes  figures  an  example  of  wickerwork  in  soft 
materials,  from  a  cave  in  Kentucky.  (See  figs.  117,  118, 
and  ii9-)t 

To  show  the  distribution  of  this  ancient  style  of  weaving, 
reference  is  here  made  to: 

1.  Coarse,  oblique,  checker,  twilled  work  from  Ohio,  made 
of  twine. 

2.  In  the  same  volume  (fig.  12)  is  shown  a  fragment  of 
twilled  cane-matting  from  Petite  Anse  Island,  Louisiana.     It 
has  been  preserved  all  these  years  by  salt.     (See  fig.  126.) 

3.  Plate  2,  in  Holmes 's  report,  shows  a  mat  of  split  cane 
from  a  rock  shelter  on  Cliff  Creek,  Morgan  County,  Tennessee. 
It  is  6  feet  6  inches  by  3  feet  4  inches.     The  variety  of  twilled 
effects  and  the  patterned  border  leave  nothing  to  be  desired. 

4.  In  a  mound  near  Augusta,   Georgia,   a  fragment  of 
twilled  matting  was  found  attached  to  the  surface  of  a  bit  of 
copper   (Holmes 's  fig.    n).     The  interesting  feature  of  this 
example  is  that  on  the  side  shown  the  warp  passes  over  one 
and  under  four,    the  weft  over  four  and  under  one.     His 
fig.  15,  from  Alabama,  is  similar,  only  the  formula  is  three 
and  one. 

5.  Fig.  14  is  from  an  impression  of  twilled  weaving  on  a 
fragment  of  pottery  found  in  Polk  County,  Tennessee.     Three 
characteristics  of  this  fragment  claim  attention.     The  warp 
is  of  fine  twine,  the  weft  of  coarse  yarn ;  the  work  is  over  two, 
both  in  warp  and  weft;  the  weaving  is  oblique.     The  effect 

*  See  Thirteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896, 
pi.  VII,  fig.  c. 

t  Thirteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896,  pi.  VII, 
figs,  c  and  d. 


284 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


of  this  technic  is  pleasing  and  unique,  the  components  being 
bands  of  closework  alternating  with  bands  of  openwork, 
made  up  of  sloping  elements,  giving  great  variety  to  unity. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  checker  and  the  twilled  work  in 
ancient  eastern  North  America  had  about  the  same  distri- 
bution as  now. 

Twined  weaving  was  common  throughout  the  Middle  and 
Eastern  States  of  the  Union  in  prehistoric  times.  Fabrics  of 
this  class  were  employed  by  the  ancient  potters  in  nearly  all 


FIG.  iao. 
TWINED  FISH  TRAP. 

Virginia  Indians. 
After  Thomas  Hariot. 


of  the  States.  Every  variety  of  twined  weaving  known  to 
the  modern  Indian  was  practised  by  the  old-time  people — 
the,  Mound  Builders  especially.  Holmes  figures  examples 
from  pottery  in  Tennessee,  Georgia,  Arkansas,  Illinois,  Missouri, 
and  Iowa.  Even  the  intricate  and  delicate  forms  of  twined 


Plate  131.     See  page  286 

OJIBWA  TWINED  WALLET  IN  OPEN  WEAVING,  SAGINAW  COUNTY, 
MICHIGAN 

Photographed  by  William  Orchard 
Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist..  N.  Y. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  285 

weaving  described  on  page  7 1  as  zig-zag  or  divided  warp  and 
crossed  warp  were  well  known. 

The  ancient  pottery  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  furnishes 
many  examples  of  this,  as  will  be  seen  in  Holmes 's  papers.* 

Traces  of  wattlework  are  found  in  the  mounds  of  the 
Lower  Mississippi  Valley,  where  imprints  of  the  interlaced 
canes  occur  in  the  baked  clay  plaster,  with  which  the  dwellings 
were  finished.  In  the  same  connection,  John  Smith,  Butel- 
Dumont,  Du  Pratz,  Lafitau,  and  John  Lawson  are  quoted 
on  the  use  of  wattling  for  houses,  inclosures,  biers,  and  burial 
platforms.  A  fish  trap,  with  long  wings,  done  in  twined 
wattling,  is  figured  in  Hariot,  and  here  reproduced  from 
Holmes.  (See  fig.  120.) 

The  illustration  shows  a  warp  of  stakes  driven  into  the 
bottom  of  the  stream,  close  enough  together  to  let  the  small 
fry  pass  through  and  to  offer  no  impediment  to  the  flow  of 
water.  Brush  or  poles  constitute  the  warp.  The  rivers  of 
the  Atlantic  coast  teemed  with  shad,  herring,  rockfish,  stur- 
geon, and  more,  in  the  spring,  and  it  is  permissible  to  infer 
that  twined  fish  traps  were  universal  there. 

Plate  130,  thanks  to  the  preserving  care  of  potsherds, 
introduces  the  reader  to  the  old  basketmakers  of  no  one  knows 
how  many  centuries  ago.  From  three  fragments,  selected  out 
of  myriads,  and  shown  in  the  plate  on  the  right  hand,  the  cast 
on  the  left  being  in  plaster,  one  might  think  himself  studying 
specimens  from  the  Aleutian  Islands  or  the  Great  Interior 
Basin.  The  figure  at  the  bottom  is  in  plain  openwork  of 
twined  weaving,  the  material  being  a  soft  bast,  perhaps  of 
native  hemp.  Hundreds  of  wallets  indistinguishable  in 
texture  from  this  are  now  brought  from  around  Bristol  Bay 
Alaska.  The  figure  in  the  middle  is  openwork  twined  weaving 

*  Prehistoric  Textile  Fabrics  of  the  United  States,  Third  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1884;  Prehistoric  Textile  Art  of  Eastern  United 
States,  the  same  subject,  Thirteenth  Annual  Report,  1896;  and  A  Study  of 
the  Textile  Art,  etc.,  Sixth  Annual  Report,  1888. 


286  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

in  diagonal  pattern.  The  warp  strands  are  in  pairs  and 
flexible,  making  the  interstices  triangular,  and  giving  to  the 
weaving  the  appearance  of  "faggoting."  If  the  weft  were 
forced  close  together,  the  texture  would  be  the  common 
twilled  work  of  the  Pacific  slope.  The  upper  figures  are  also 
twined,  but  of  rarer  style,  the  warp  being  set  diagonally. 
This  figure  is  worthy  of  note  in  two  respects.  The  work- 
manship in  twisting  of  the  threads  is  superb.  One  would 
have  to  look  a  long  time  through  a  collection  of  twined 
weaving  of  the  present  day  to  see  threads  nearly  so  fine.  Not 
until  the  outermost  island  of  the  Aleutian  chain  was  reached 
would  the  specimen  appear.  The  other  characteristic  is  the 
sloping  warp,  a  thing  of  rare  occurrence  in  twined  weaving. 

A  further  glance  at  basketry  technic  preserved  in  impres- 
sions on  pottery  and  in  caves  shows  plain  twined  weave, 
open  or  closed,  with  vertical  or  oblique  warp ;  twilled  weaving 
in  twined  weft  and  twined  weaving  with  zigzag  warp;  three- 
ply  twined  weaving,  and  a  style  of  twined  work,  which  for 
exhausting  possibilities  of  variety  in  warp  treatment  will 
vie  with  any  modern  example.  The  material  is  good  twine, 
the  warp  is  administered  in  groups  of  sixes,  oblique  toward 
the  right.  The  weft  is  a  two-ply  twine,  which,  in  crossing  the 
warp,  takes  in  a  strand  at  each  half -turn  and  is  twisted  tightly 
in  the  open  spaces.  The  pattern  is  varied  by  bands  of  close 
weft  in  three  rows,  above  and  below  which  the  groups  of  six 
warp  strands  are  split  into  threes.  Attention  is  called  to 
Plate  8,  in  the  Thirteenth  Bureau  Report,  where  is  shown 
ancient  twined  work  preserved  by  being  wrapped  about  copper 
celts.*  (See  figs.  121-122;  also  Plate  107.) 

Plate  131  represents  an  open-twined  wallet  of  the  Ojibwa 
Indians  (Algonquian  family),  at  Angwassag  Village,  near  St. 
Charles,  Saginaw  County,  Michigan.  The  native  name  is 
Na  Moot,  and  it  is  made  from  the  inner  bark  of  the  slippery 

*  Thirteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896,  figs. 
21-26,  and  Plates  VII  and  VIII. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY 


287 


FIG.  121. 
TWINED  WEAVE  FROM  ANCIENT  POTTERY. 

Tennessee. 
After  W.H.  Holmes. 


elm  (Ulmus  americana).  Other  bags  of  the  same  technic 
in  the  United  States  National  Museum  are  from  the  elm  bark 
associated  with  red  and  black  yarn.  The  technic  of  these 
wallets  is  so  in- 
teresting in  the 
survival  of  an- 
cient weaves 
that  they  justi- 
fy a  special  de- 
scription. The 
weft  is  plain 
twined  weaving ; 
all  the  ornamen- 
tation, therefore, 
i  s  effected  b  y 
means  of  the 
warp,  which  is  partly  vertical,  but  more  of  the  zigzag  type 
seen  in  many  Aleutian  Island  wallets.  In  all  of  the  speci- 
mens examined,  the  warp  is  made  up  of  twine,  partly  in 

the  material  of  the  weft  and 
partly  in  coloured  yarns. 
The  diameter  of  the  warp 
twine,  especially  the  yarns, 
seems  to  be  greater  than  the 
length  of  the  twists  in  the 
weft,  so  that  there  is  a 
crowding  which  brings  one 
colour  to  the  front  and 
leaves  another  colour  inside 
— that  is,  the  figures  that 
are  brown  on  the  outside 
will  appear  in  yarn  on  the 
To  be  more  explicit,  beginning  at  the 
lower  edge  of  any  one  of  these  wallets,  the  warp  may  be  in 
pairs,  the  elements  of  which  separate  and  come  together 


FIG.  121. 

TWINED  WEAVE  FROM  ANCIENT 

POTTERY. 

Tennessee. 

After  W.  H.  Holmes. 


inside  and  the  reverse. 


288  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

alternately  in  the  rows  of  weaving.  On  the  outside  of  the 
bag,  two  elm-bark  warp  strands  will  be  included  and  appear; 
in  the  next  half-twine  two  yarns  will  be  included  and  show 
on  the  inside  of  the  wallet.  After  the  zigzag  process  goes  on 
for  a  short  distance,  the  weaver  changes  her  plan,  omits  the 
bark  or  the  yarn  warp  altogether,  but  continues  the  twining 
process,  catching  the  warp  in  every  other  half -turn  of  the  twine. 
Again,  there  will  be  a  row  or  two  of  ordinary  twined  weaving 
with  straight  warp,  when  she  returns  to  her  zigzag  method, 
covering  the  entire  surface  therewith.  At  the  top  of  the  bag, 
an  inch  or  less  of  plain  twined  weaving,  in  which  the  warps 
are  vertical  and  included  in  pairs,  brings  her  to  the  outer 
border,  where  all  the  warps  are  twisted  together  and  turned 
back  to  be  fastened  off  in  the  texture.  In  an  old  example  in 
the  National  Museum,  long,  cut  fringes  are  sewed  to  the  upper 
margin  and  to  the  sides  of  the  bag. 

The  photographs  of  the  twined  bag  shown  in  Plate  131 
were  taken  by  William  Orchard,  of  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  and  presented  to  the  National  Museum  by 
Harlan  I.  Smith.  On  one  side  a  mountain  lion  and  on  the  other 
an  eagle  with  geometric  figures  are  shown  in  black.  The 
technic  of  this  particular  example,  from  left  to  right,  would  be 
five  vertical  rows  of  plain  twined  weaving ;  nine  rows  of  mixed 
warp,  but  plain  weaving;  a  course  of  braided  warp  in  which 
the  four  elements  of  two  rows  of  warp  are  brought  together 
and  included  in  the  twine.  On  the  other  side  is  a  similar 
administration.  The  middle  portion  shows  zigzag  twined 
weaving,  figured.  Above  this  is  a  row  of  three-ply  twined 
weaving,  as  among  many  of  the  western  tribes;  above  this, 
three  rows  of  plain  twined  weaving  in  openwork,  including  all 
the  warps.  At  the  top,  the  warps  are  twisted  and  fastened  into 
the  texture.  It  must  be  clearly  understood  that  the  figures 
which  show  black  on  the  outside — that  is,  the  eagle  and  the 
lion — will  be  white  on  the  inside,  necessarily.  The  colours 
used  in  the  small  specimen  of  the  National  Museum  are  the 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  289 

natural  tints  of  the  bark  mixed  with  brown,  black,  and  blue 
yarns.  The  National  Museum  is  indebted  to  Andrew  John, 
a  Seneca  Indian,  of  New  York,  for  a  number  of  specimens  of 
modern  Iroquoian  twined  ware  from  corn  husks. 

There  was  a  decided  lack  of  coiled  basketry  in  all  this  vast 
region.  Every  kind  of  hand-woven  ware  was  known.  Algon- 
quian,  Iroquoian,  Siouan,  and  Muskhogean  tribes  of  the 
present,  and  all  the  cave -dwelling  and  mound-building  ancients,, 
seem,  so  far  as  the  evidence  points,  to  have  known  little  of 
coiling. 

From  this  hasty  survey  of  ancient  hand-weaving  in  basketry 
and  the  other  receptacles,  as  well  as  in  matting,  webbing, 
sandals,  and  such  products  of  the  textile  art  as  resemble 
basketry,  it  is  now  permissible  to  examine  their  modern 
representatives  in  the  southern  portions  of  the  same  area. 

In  the  States  of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  are  many 
Indians  still  living,  remnants  of  the  Cherokees  (Iroquoian), 
Choctaws,  Creeks,  Chickasaws,  and  Seminoles  (Muskhogean), 
and  the  almost  vanished  Attakapas  and  Chetimachas.  Some 
of  them  were  removed  fifty  years  ago  into  the  Indian  Territory. 
Through  the  lowlands  of  these  States  grow  the  interminable 
cane-brakes,  and  from  the  split  cane  all  these  tribes  make  their 
basketry.  They  follow  the  twilled  pattern  of  weaving. 
Even  now  there  may  be  purchased  in  Mobile,  New  Orleans,  and 
other  Southern  cities,  little  baskets  of  yellow,  red,  black,  and 
green  cane  woven  in  twill,  crossing  with  the  woof  two  or  more 
warp  splints,  and  managing  the  checks  so  as  to  produce 
diamonds  and  various  zigzag  patterns  on  the  outside.  The 
Choctaws  make  a  basket,  oval  at  the  top  and  pointed  below, 
for  presents,  averring  that  this  shape  imitates  the  heart, 
which  always  accompanies  every  gift.  The  handles  of  their 
basketry  are  very  clumsily  put  on,  marring  greatly  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  otherwise  attractive  object. 

Often  in  weaving,  two  thin  strips  are  laid  together,  the 


2QO 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


FIG.  123. 
DETAIL  OF  TWILLED  BASKETRY  BORDER. 

Choctaw  Indians,  Louisiana. 
Cat.  No.  24.143,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  Father  Roquet. 


soft  sides  inward.     The  evident  motive  in  doubling  the  thin 

strips  is  to  have  both  sides  of  the  basket  or  mat  glossy  and 

smooth.  Further  on,  it 
will  be  noted  that  in 
twined  weaving,  where 
the  strands  of  the  weft 
are  from  split  roots, 
both  sides  are  rendered 
smooth  by  revolving 
each  strand  half  a  turn 
as  it  passes  through  be- 
tween the  warp  stems. 
(Seepage  317.) 

Figs.  123  and  124 
show  the  detail  of 
twilled  basketry  among 

the   Southern  tribes,  both  in  the  coarser  and  finer  varieties. 

In  Fig.  123,  a  and  b,   will  be  seen  the  border.     Each  weft 

strand  crosses  four  warp 

strands.     In  this  example 

the   warp,   however,  does 

not  cover   each  time  the 

same    number    of    weft 

strands ;  the  consequence  is 

a  nearly  horizontal  diag- 
onal effect  in  the  pattern. 

To  form  the  border,  a  few 

of  the  warp  filaments  are 

bent    down   and   inclosed 

in  a  wrapping  of  the  same 

material.  Underneath  this 

is  a  row  of  twined  weav- 

v.'  v.  ^  1/1     *       1  FlG' 124' 

ing,  wmcn  nolds  in  place         BORDER  OF  TWILLED  BASKETRY. 

those    Warp    elements    that  Choctaw  Indians,  Louisiana. 

do      not      enter      intO      the        Cat.  No.  24,43- U.S^Collected  by  Father 


•-.     s..  --. 


Plate  132.     See  page  391 

TWILLED  BASKETRY  OF  SPLIT  CANE,  MADE  BY  THE  CHETIMACHAS 
OF    LOUISIANA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  2QI 

texture.  A  much  neater  example  of  work  of  this  kind  is 
shown  in  the  next  figure,  where  the  filaments  are  more  carefully 
prepared  and  manipulated  and  the  border  more  neatly  fin- 
ished, but  the  technical  process  is  the  same.  The  artistic 
effect  of  plain  twilled  work  is  shown  in  this  example. 

Fig.  124  exhibits  the  process  of  crossing  in  what  might  be 
called  diaper  or  figured  work.  The  effect  is  heightened  by 
dyeing  black  one  set  of  the  filaments,  either  warp  or  weft. 
In  that  case,  the  figures  stand  out  most  prominently.  The 
entire  effect  of  this  sort  of  weaving,  however,  is  in  the  endless 
combination  of  rectangles,  black  and  white,  all  having  the 
same  width  and  different  lengths. 

The  basket  shown  in  this  dissected  weaving  is  Choctaw, 
Catalogue  No.  24,143,  in  the  United  States  National  Museum, 
collected  by  Father  Roquet,  of  New  Orleans. 

Plates  132-133  represent  the  twilled  basketry  of  the 
Chetimacha  Indians,  Chetimachan  family,  who  have  their 
home  on  Grande  River  and  the  larger  part  in  Charenton,  St. 
Mary's  Parish,  Louisiana.  The  name  is  derived  from  the 
Choctaw  words,  tchuti,  "cooking  vessel,"  masha,  "they 
possess."  Mr.  Gatschet,  in  1881,  found  about  fifty  individuals 
still  living.  The  material  of  their  work  is  the  cane  (Arundi- 
naria  tecta) ,  and  all  of  their  weaving  is  in  the  twilled  style  of 
technic. 

Compared  with  the  work  of  the  Choctaw  (Plate  134)  and 
their  neighbours,  the  Attakapa  (Plate  13,5),  it  is  more  pictu- 
resque and  attractive,  the  colours  being  the  original  of  the  cane, 
red  and  yellow.  Similar  work  is  to  be  seen  in  the  northern 
part  of  South  America,  especially  in  Guiana.  The  interesting 
feature  of  the  Attakapa  weaving  is  that  frequently  the  speci- 
mens have  the  appearance  of  being  double — that  is,  both  the 
outside  and  the  inside  of  the  receptacle  presenting  the  smooth 
surface  of  the  cane.  At  once  the  work  connects  itself  with 
matting  found  in  the  caves  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and 
with  Yaqui  work  in  Mexico. 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Plate  133  represents  a  fine  collection  of  old  Chetimachas 
in  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Sidney  Bradford,  of  Avery  Island, 
Louisiana.  They  should  be  examined  carefully,  since  they 
were  posed  so  as  to  exhibit  the  technic  of  the  various  parts 
and  the  variety  of  symbolism. 

Mrs.  Bradford  has  identified  the  plants  with  which  these 
Indians  dye  their  basketry,  the  black  being  produced  from 
the  bark  of  the  walnut  (Juglans  nigrd)  and  the  yellow  from 
Rumex  verticellatus.  The  red  dye  comes  from  the  root  of  a 
plant,  specimens  of  which  are  in  the  National  Museum,  but  are 
not  identified. 

Plate  135  shows  a  small  number  of  twilled  basketry,  made 
by  the  Attakapa  Indians,  living  in  Calcasieu  Parish,  Louisiana. 
They  are  the  last  remnant  of  an  independent  linguistic  family 
once  spread  southward  along  the  Texan  coast.  The  baskets 
are  made  from  the  stems  of  the  cane.  The  outer  tough  layer 
is  split  off  and  dyed,  if  necessary.  It  is  then  worked  into 
twilled  ware,  which  by  the  texture  and  variety  of  colors  shows 
elegant  designs. 

These  specimens,  Catalogue  Nos.  165,735  to  165,739,  in 
the  United  States  National  Museum,  were  collected  in  Louis- 
iana by  Mrs.  William  Preston  Johnston. 

The  Cherokee  make  the  handsomest  clothes-baskets, 
considering  their  materials.  They  divide  large  swamp  canes 
into  long,  thin,  narrow  splinters,  which  they  dye  in  several 
colours,  and  manage  the  workmanship  so  well  that  both  the 
inside  and  outside  are  covered  with  a  beautiful  variety  of 
pleasing  figures ;  and  though  for  the  space  of  two  inches  below 
the  upper  edge  of  each  basket  it  is  worked  into  one,  through 
the  other  parts  they  are  worked  asunder,  as  if  they  were  two 
joined  atop  by  some  strong  cement.  The  weaving  begins  at 
the  bottom  of  the  inner  basket  and  is  finished  at  the  bottom 
of  the  outer  one  (compare  page  484).  A  large  nest  consists 
of  eight  or  ten  baskets  contained  one  within  another.  Their 
dimensions  are  different,  but  they  usually  make  the  outside 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY 


293 


basket  about  a  foot  deep,  a  foot  and  a  half  broad,  and  almost 
a  yard  long.* 

A  type  collection  of  this  ware  was  made  for  the  National 
Museum  by  James  Mooney.f 

Fig.  125  shows  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  beautiful  baskets 
in  the  National  Museum,  presented  by  Doctors  Gray  and 
Matthews,  of  the  Army. 
Four  bent  poles  constitute 
the  framework.  Those  at 
the  sides  are  10  inches 
apart  at  the  top,  4  at  the 
bottom,  and  are  quite  con- 
.cealed  in  the  structure. 
The  end  pair  cross  these 
at  right  angles  and  descend 
6  inches  to  afford  a  rest 
for  the  load.  The  carry- 
ing strap  is  of  rawhide. 
The  weaving  is  in  twilled 
work,  with  diaper  patterns 
made  in  narrow  strips  of 
bark,  some  having  their 
outer,  some  their  inner 
surface  exposed. 

The  weaving  was  done 
by  an  Arikara  woman  in 
Dakota.  Now,  these  In- 
dians are  not  Sioux,  but 
belong  to  the  Caddoan 
family,  spread  over  Louisiana  and  Texas.  It  should  not  be 
surprising,  therefore,  to  find  baskets  similar  to  those  of  the 
Cherokees  and  the  Gulf  tribes  in  their  hands. 

In  close  connection  with  wickerwork  and  checkerwork  is 


FIG.  125. 
TWILLED  BASKET. 

Arikara  Indians. 

Cat.  No.  84.340,  U.S. N.M.  Collected  by  Gray  and 
Matthews. 


*  James  Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  London,  1775,  p.  424- 
t  Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1900,  p.  176. 


294  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

twilled  or  diagonal  technic  from  many  localities,  especially  in 
the  South.  An  interesting  example  is  illustrated  by  Holmes.* 
The  two  elements,  the  warp  and  the  weft,  are  of  entirely 
different  material,  one  a  finely  spun  thread,  the  other  a  loose, 
coarse  filament  several  times  wider  than  the  former,  and  are 
woven  together  in  the  ordinary  plan  of  under  two  and  over 
two,  and  yet  the  difference  in  the  width  and  tension  of  the 
two  elements  produces  a  most  charming  effect,  which  is  not 
lost,  after  many  thousands  of  years,  in  the  cast  taken  from 
the  surface  of  the  fragment.  (See  page  59.)  An  example  of 
matting,  also  illustrated  by  Holmes,  was  taken  from  a  piece 
of  pottery  found  in  Alabama.  It  is  worked  in  the  diagonal 
style,  but  on  one  side  the  warp  passes  over  one  and  under 
three,  and,  consequently,  though  the  matting  was  destroyed 
hundreds  of  years  ago,  it  is  certain  that  on  the  other  side  of 
the  fabric  the  weft  made  a  similar  figure,  but  vertical.  (See 

Page  59-) 

The  caves  of  Kentucky  furnish  specimens  of  ancient 
textiles,  preserved  in  nitrous  earth,  and  fig.  1 1 7  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  one  of  these,  revealing  a  wicker  type  of  weaving  in  soft 
materials,  not  found  on  pottery,  however.t 

One  of  the  most  interesting  examples  of  this  ancient  work 
is  illustrated  by  Foster,  also  taken  from  a  mound  on  Great 
Miami  River,  Ohio.  It  has  a  warp  of  twine,  on  which  the 
weft  is  wrapped  round  and  round.  (See  page  241.)  Only  one 
family  of  Indians,  the  Yuman,  of  Arizona,  at  present  employ 
this  technic  in  making  baskets.  (Fig.  13;  compare  fig.  14,  in 
the  chapter  on  processes.) 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  Andamanese,  living  half- 
way round  the  world,  employ  the  same  method  of  workman- 
ship on  their  open  fish  baskets. 

Fig.  126  is  from  the  photograph  of  a  specimen  of  ancient 
twilled  matting  from  Petit  Anse  Island,  near  Vermillion  Bay, 

*  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1884,  p.  416,  fig.  98. 
t  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1884,  p.  403,  fig.  67. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


295 


coast  of  Louisiana,  presented  to  the  Smithsonian  Institution 
by  J.  F.  Cleu,  in  May,  1866.  Petit  Anse  Island  is  the  locality 
of  the  remarkable  mine  of  rock  salt  exploited  during  the  civil 
war,  and  from  which,  for  a  number  of  years,  the  Southern 
States  derived  a  great  part  of  their  supply  of  that  article. 
The  salt  is  almost  chemically  pure,  and  apparently  inexhaust- 


FIG.  126. 

ANCIENT  TWILLED  MATTING. 
Petit  Anse  Island,  Louisiana. 


ible  in  quantity,  occurring  in  every  part  of  the  island,  which 
is  about  5,000  acres  in  extent,  at  a  depth  below  the  surface  of 
the  soil  of  15  or  20  feet.  The  fragment  of  matting  here 
photographed  was  found  near  the  surface  of  the  salt.  No  vast 
antiquity  can  be  argued  on  this  account,  but  the  specimen  is 
without  doubt  very  old  and  a  relic  of  the  weavers  who  lived  a 
long  time  before  the  discovery  of  America.  The  material 


296  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

consists  of  the  outer  bark  of  the  common  Southern  cane 
(Arundinaria  tecta),  and  has  been  preserved  for  so  long  a 
period  both  by  its  siliceous  character  and  the  strongly  saline 
condition  of  the  soil. 

THE  ALASKAN  REGION 

There  is  a  charm  in  the  name  of  such  Indian  material  as 
spruceroot,  wild  rye,  and  cedar  bark,  but  they  would  be  useless 
to  us  without  the  Indian  touch. — MARY  WHITE. 

For  convenience  of  study,  a  line  may  be  drawn  across  the 
.map  of  North  America  from  Dixon  Entrance  northeastward, 
so  as  to  have  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  and  the  makers  of  coiled 
basketry  that  are  inland  to  the  north  of  it.  The  tribes  included 
will  be  Athapascan,  Eskimauan,  Koluschan,  and  Skittagetan. 
Among  the  two  first  named,  twined  and  coiled  work,  in  many 
styles  of  weaving,  will  be  found,  while  the  two  last  named  and 
their  northern  neighbours,  the  Aleuts,  have  avoided  coiled 
basketry  altogether.  In  Plate  136  are  gathered  types  of  the 
peninsula  of  Alaska — Athapascan,  Eskimo,  and  Aleutian, 
embracing  hard  coil,  soft  coil,  closed  twined  work,  open  twined 
work,  straight  warp,  crossed  warp,  and  hemstitch,  gathered 
by  E.  W.  Nelson. 

In  studying  the  basketry  of  this  region,  the  following 
division,  according  to  tribes  and  families,  will  be  found  con- 
venient : 

1.  Athapascan  (interior  of  Alaska). 

2.  Eskimo  (around  shore). 

3.  Aleuts  (Aleutian  Archipelago). 

4.  Tlinkits  (southeastern  Alaska). 

5.  Haidas  (Queen  Charlotte  Islands). 

ATHAPASCAN  COILED  BASKETRY 

Perhaps  no  other  family  of  American  tribes  has  such  a 
variety  of  contacts  with  neighbours  of  different  linguistic 
families  and  of  limitations  in  environments  having  little 
likeness  to  one  another.  This  northern  branch  of  them,  as 


Plate  134.     See  page  291 

TWILLED  BASKETS  OF  SPLIT  CANE,    MADE  BY  CHOCTAW  INDIANS    OF 

LOUISIANA 

Collection  of  Mrs.  Carolyn  G.  Benjamin 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY 


297 


will  be  seen  in  Father  Morice's  list,*  is  in  touch  along  their 
southern  border  with  Algonquian  descendants  of  Mound 
Builders  on  the  Ohio,  with  birch  bark  workers  in  northern 
middle  Canada,  and  with  Pacific  coast  tribes  here  and  there. 
Some  of  these  were  noted  in  speaking  of  Region  i,  page  279. 
Further  on,  other  contacts  will  be  shown.  The  distribution  of 
the  family  is  given  by  Powell  on  his  linguistic  map  of  North 
America.! 

Here  the  Athapascans  are  in  touch  with  Eskimo;  indeed, 
most  of  the  specimens  of  their  ware  shown  were  procured  from 
the  former  in  trade.  Their 
technical  methods  will  be 
best  understood  through 
illustrations. 

The  northern  Tinn6 
practice  several  varieties 
of  technic  in  their  coiled 
work.  The  tribes  of  the 
interior  of  Alaska  make  a 
very  coarse  coiled  basket, 
now  becoming  common. 
Some  of  the  very  old  pieces  have  the  button-hole  stitch  in  the 
sewing.  In  a  collection  of  them,  no  two  will  agree  either  in 
shape  or  composition. 

The  best  of  the  ware  is  from  near  the  Mackenzie  mouth, 
where  dyed  feathers  are  used  for  decoration.  Some  of  the 
oldest  specimens  in  the  National  Museum,  entered  in  the 
first  catalogue,  are  coiled  basket  trays  of  the  Athapascan 
Indian  tribes  living  at  Fort  Simpson,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mackenzie  River.  Splints  of  willow  and  spruce  root  are 
employed  in  the  work,  and  the  ornamentation  is  meager, 
consisting  of  stripes  on  the  side,  and  borders,  in  quilled  work 

*  Transactions  of  the  Canadian  Institute,  Toronto,  IV,  1894,  Pt.  I,  No.  7 
t  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington. 
1891,  p.  55. 


PIG.  127. 
COILED  WORK-BASKET. 

Tinn£  Indians,  Alaska. 
Cat.  No.  89,801,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  P.  H.  Ray. 


298 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


dyed  in  different  colours.  These  specimens  vary  from  6  to 
8  inches  in  diameter,  and  were  gathered  by  R.  MacFarlane, 
B.  R.  Ross,  and  W.  L.  Hardesty. 

Fig.  127  is  a  coiled  basket  jar,  of  the  Tinne1  Indians,  near 
Point  Barrow,  Alaska.     The  specimen  belongs  to  the  single- 
rod  type,  in  which  one  rod,  or  stem,  constitutes  the  foundation. 
The  sewing  is  done  with  split  stems  of  willow,  passing  over 
the  rod  in  progress  and  under  the  one  forming  the  coil  under- 
neath.    The  illustration  here  given  of 
this  specimen  is  from  Murdoch's  paper 
on  the  Point  Barrow  Eskimo.*      It  is 
said  to  have  come  from  Sidaru.     The 
owner  declared  that  it  came  from  the 
Great   River  in  the  south,  which  Mr. 
Murdoch  interprets  to  mean  the  Kowak, 
flowing  into  Hotham  Inlet.     The  Eski- 
mo are  in  the  habit  of  going   to   this 
place    in    order    to     trade    with    the 
Indians,   and   thus   this    coiled    basket 
found   its  way  into  the  possession   of 
the    Eskimo    at    Point   Barrow.     This 
figure  is  336,  on  page  326,  in  Murdoch's 
paper.     Catalogue  No.  89,801.     Height, 
about   3    5-16   inches.       Collected   by 
P.  H.  Ray,  United  States  Army. 

Catalogue  No.  89,802,  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  is  a  conical  work-basket,  with  a  sealskin  top,  for  a 
drawing-string,  to  keep  the  contents  from  falling  out.  It  is 
in  coiled  weaving  over  a  single  rod,  from  Sidaru,  northern 
Alaska,  near  Point  Barrow,  collected  by  Lieutenant  P.  H. 
Ray,  United  States  Army.  It  is  similar  in  technic  to  No. 
89,801.  Its  height  is  4^  inches,  and  it  has  been  described  by 
Murdoch.  (See  fig.  128.) 

*  Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1892,  pp. 
326-327. 


FIG.  128. 
COILED   WORK-BASKET. 

Tinn£  Indians. 
Collected  by  P.  H.  Ray. 


Plate  135.       See  page  292 

TWILLED  BASKETS  OF  CANE,  MADE  BY  ATTAKAPAS,  LOUISIANA 

Collection  of  Mrs.  William  P.  Johnston 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


299 


Catalogue  No.  56,564,  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  is  an  Eskimo  woman's  work  box  (Aguma,  ama, 
ipiaru)  in  coiled  basketry,  from  Point  Barrow,  Alaska,  also 
collected  by  Lieutenant  Ray.  The  material  is  willow  and  the 
technic  is  coiled  work  of  the  single-rod  type.  The  neck  of  the 
basket  is  of  black,  tanned  sealskin,  and  is  tied  with  a  string 
of  the  same  material.  Height  if  inches.  It  has  been  de- 
scribed by  Murdoch.  (See  fig.  129.) 

Take  an  example  from  another  part  of  Alaska.  Fig.  130 
is  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Tinn6  Indians,  who  are  settled  on  the 
Lower  Yukon  River.  The  founda- 
tion is  a  single  rod  of  spruceroot, 
and  the  sewing  is  done  with  splints 
of  the  same  material.  It  belongs 
to  the  type  of  coiled  work  called  a 
single  rod  (see  page  92) ;  the  stitches 
interlock  with  those  underneath 
and  inclose  also  the  rod  of  that  coil. 
Each  stitch,  therefore,  really  in- 
closes two  foundations.  In  the 
explorations  of  Dall,  Nelson,  and 
Turner,  in  this  long  stretch  of  river 
bottom,  were  collected  many  speci- 
mens showing  transition  between 
Indian  and  Eskimo  activities. 

On  the  bottom,  the  basketmaker  has  taken  the  greatest 
pains  to  split  the  stitches  of  each  coil  with  those  of  the  coil 
beyond,  giving  to  each  one,  looked  at  from  the  center,  a 
bifurcated  appearance  which  is  quite  ornamental.  The 
same  technic  will  be  observed  further  on  in  examining  the 
workmanship  of  the  Thompson  River  Indians,  in  British 
Columbia,  and  by  their  neighbours,  the  Chilcotin.  The 
Eskimo  woman  also  in  making  her  coiled  basketwork  splits 
the  stitches  of  her  coil  and  sews  through  them.  This  process 
is  kept  up  on  the  body  of  this  specimen  half  the  way  up. 


FIG.  129. 
COILED  WORK-BASKET. 

Tinn^  Indians. 
Collected  by  P.  H.  Ray. 


300 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


The  coils  vary  considerably  in  width ;  the  stitches  also  are  not 
of  the  same  size,  so  that  there  is  by  no  means  the  uniform 
regularity,  either  horizontally  or  vertically,  that  one  observes 
in  the  California  area.  It  will  be  noticed,  too,  that  the  top  of 
each  stitch  is  narrowed  by  reason  of  the  crowding.  Over  the 
entire  surface  of  this  specimen  it  is  quite  impossible  to  see  the 
foundation  rod,  because  of  this  crowding  of  stitches. 

This  specimen  is  jar-shaped,  and  under  good  conditions 


FIG.  130. 
COILED  WORK-BASKET. 

Ttnn^  Indians. 
Cat.  No.  24,342,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  Lucien  Turner. 


would  hold  water.  Catalogue  No.  24,342,  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum.  Collected,  with  many  others, 
on  the  Lower  Yukon  River,  by  Lucien  M.  Turner.  Diameter, 
8£  inches;  height,  6f  inches.  The  manner  of  laying  the 
splint  foundation,  of  splitting  the  stitches,  and  of  finishing  off 
the  border  in  false  braid  is  shown  in  fig.  131,  taken  from 
another  example. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  middle  Alaska  to  the  Hupa  Valley, 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


301 


northern  California.  The  basket  here  shown  is  No,  126,520, 
in  the  United  States  National  Museum,  collected  by  Captain 
Ray.*  It  is  introduced  to  show  a  coincidence  in  form  between 
the  work  of  Tinne"  and  Hupa,  who  speak  languages  of  the 
same  family  in  regions  wide  apart.  It  is  twined  work.  (See 
fig.  132,  and  compare  figs.  128  and  129.) 

ESKIMO  BASKETRY 

Baskets  not  only  have  an  infinite  variety  of  functions 
from  village  to  village,  but  among  each  people  they  have  a 
multitude  of  uses.  From  the 
shore  of  Norton  Sound  to  the 
Kuskokwim  the  women  are 
expert  in  weaving  grass  mats, 
baskets,  and  bags.  Grass 
mats  are  used  on  the  sleeping 
benches  and  for  wrapping 
around  bedding.  They  are 
used  also  as  sails  for  umiaks. 
They  now  frequently  serve  as 
curtains  to  partition  off  the 

FIG.  131. 

corners  of  a  room  or  sleeping  DETAIL  OF  COILED  BASKET  WITH  SPLINT 

FOUNDATION,    SPLIT     STITCHES,    AND 

platform.     Small    mats    are     BRAIDED  BORDER, 

placed  also  in  the  manholes 

of  kaiaks  as  cushions.     The  bags  are  used  for  storing  fish, 

berries,  and  other  food  supplies,  or  for  clothing.      Smaller 

bags  and  baskets  are  made  for  containing  small  articles  used 

in  the  house. t 

Two  types  of  basketwork  are  found  in  close  proximity 
among  the  Eskimo  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Norton  Sound  and 
Bristol  Bay,  north  and  south,  the  twined  and  the  coiled.  In 
the  former  (fig.  133)  the  treatment  is  precisely  the  same  as  in 
those  of  Aleutian  Islands,  to  be  described,  but  the  Eskimo 

*  Smithsonian  Report,  1886,  Pt.  I,  pi.  XV,  fig.  67. 

t  E.  W.  Nelson,  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology, 
11,00,  pi.  74. 


302 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


wallet  is  of  coarser  material  and  the  weaving  is  far  more 
rudely  done.  Quite  as  interesting  as  the  wallets  is  the  matting. 
(See  Plate  136.) 

At  Chuwuk,  on  the  Lower  Yukon,  Nelson  saw  a  woman 
making  one  of  these  mats,  and  watched  the  process  she  em- 
ployed. A  set  of  three  or  four  straws  was  twisted  and  the 
ends  turned  in,  for  a  strand,  a  number  of  which  were  arranged 
side  by  side  with  their  ends  fastened  along  a  stick,  the  primal 
loom,  forming  one  end  of  the  mat  and  hanging  down  for  the 


FIG.  132. 

TOBACCO  BASKET. 
Hupa  Indians,  California. 
Collected  by  P.  H.  Ray. 

warp.  Other  strands  were  then  used  as  woof.  By  a  deft 
twist  of  the  fingers,  it  was  carried  from  one  side  of  the  mat  to 
the  other,  passing  above  and  below  a  strand  of  the  warp ;  then 
the  woof  strands  were  twined  around  the  other  strands  of  the 
warp,  to  repeat  the  operation.  The  woof  strands  were  made 
continuous  by  adding  straws  as  necessary,  and  with  each 
motion  the  strands  were  twisted  a  little  so  as  to  keep  them 
firmly  together.  By  this  simple  method  a  variety  of  patterns 
is  produced. 


Plate  136.      See  page  302 

TYPES  OF  TWINED  AND  COILED  BASKETWORK  IN  ALASKA 
AFTER  E.  W.  NELSON 


^3M«i 

T?nrTnmnnm»H»lvlt\ivj}v^lSSH 

nfTtti  rirrmrrtrtVjLUt^irtiigaM 


Plate  137.     See  page  303 

TWINED  WALLET  IN  OPENWORK,  ESKIMO  OF  NORTON  SOUND, 

ALASKA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


3°3 


Grass  bags  are  started  from  the  bottom  where  the  strands 
of  the  warp,  consisting  of  two  or  more  grass  stems,  are  fastened 
together  and  extend  vertically  downward.  The  woof  is 
formed  by  a  pair  of  strands  of  grass,  each  of  which  is  twisted 
about  itself  and  both  twined  with  the  strands  of  the  warp 
inclosed  in  the  turns;  both  are  continually  twisted  as  the 
weaving  progresses.  In  coarsely  made  bags  the  strands  of 
the  woof  are  spaced  from  an  inch  to  two  inches  apart,  and 
those  of  the  warp  at  intervals  of  from  a  quarter  to  half  an 
inch.  These  bags  have  a 
conical  bottom,  which  slopes 
from  the  center  to  the  sides. 
At  the  mouth  the  ends  of  the 
warp  are  braided  to  form  a 
continuous  edge.* 

The  lower  figures  in  Nel- 
son's group  of  Alaskan 
basketry  (Plate  136)  show 
plainly  the  matting,  the 
closely  woven  twined  wallet, 
and  the  openwork.  Plates  137 
to  145  in  this  paper  are  all 
excellent  illustrations  of  the 
ware  here  described.  The  specimens  are  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum. 

Plate  137  will  show  better  the  detail,  body  and  bottom,  of 
one  of  the  twined  wallets  of  the  Norton  Sound  Eskimo.  The 
warp  and  the  twining  of  the  bottom  are  of  a  very  coarse, 
rush-like  grass.  The  bottom  is  in  openwork,  and  oval.  In 
this  example  the  warp  is  radiating  from  a  median  line;  in 
others  the  strands  are  laid  parallel,  so  that  they  form  a  rect- 
angle. At  the  boundary  line  between  the  bottom  and  the 
body  of  the  wallet  there  is  a  row  of  three-strand  weaving,  the 


FIG.  133. 

DETAIL  OF  ESKIMO  TWINED  WALLET. 
Collected  by  E.  W.  Nelson. 


»  Eighteenth 
LXXIV. 


Report    of    the     Bureau     of    Ethnology,    1900,    pi. 


304  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

rows  running  in  opposite  directions,  as  will  be  seen  in  the 
drawing.  The  body  is  rush  colour;  the  spotted  lines  on  the 
cylindrical  portion  are  in  black,  produced  by  the  insertion  of 
rags  and  bits  of  hide.  This  effect  may  be  varied  by  mixing 
two  strands  of  different  colour  in  the  twine.  The  fastening 
off  at  the  top  is  done  by  working  the  warp  strands  into  a 
three-strand  braid,  turning  down  on  the  inside  of  the  vessel, 
and  cutting  off  an  end  whenever  a  new  warp  thread  is  taken 
up  by  the  braid.  Frequently  the  last  three  or  four  warp 
straws  are  not  cut  off,  but  braided  out  to  their  extremities  in 
order  to  form  a  handle  for  the  basket. 

In  order  to  show  how  the  warp  and  weft  are  administered 
in  this  far  north  region,  a  square  inch  of  a  wallet  is  represented 
much  enlarged,  fig  133.  The  openwork,  producing  parallel 
figures,  is  effected  by  leaving  spaces  between  the  different 
lines  of  twining.  The  four  rows  at  the  top  of  the  drawing  are 
plain,  solid,  twined  weaving;  the  fifth  row  from  the  top  is 
twined  in  an  opposite  direction,  giving  the  effect  of  a  three- 
strand  braid  between  the  two  rows.  It  is  interesting  to  find 
this  method  of  basket-weaving  so  far  north. 

The  student  will  notice  further  on  that  very  much  of  the 
elegant  use  of  the  warp  in  ornamentation,  so  common  with 
the  Aleuts,  who  speak  a  kindred  language  and  live  near-by,  is 
lost.  It  will  be  seen,  however,  that  with  their  rude  materials 
and  tools  the  Eskimo  have  acquired  the  art  of  making  a  great 
variety  of  basketry,  showing  that  they  have  had  a  multitude 
of  teachers.  This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  38,872,  in  the 
United  States  National  Museum,  was  collected,  with  many 
others,  at  Norton  Sound,  by  E.  W.  Nelson. 

To  furnish  a  means  of  comparison  between  the  two  sides 
of  Bering  Sea,  Plate  138  is  a  twined  wallet  of  the  Chukchi 
people  of  Kamchatka.  The  foundation  is  of  straw  laid 
parallel,  and  the  weft  is  of  plain  twined  weaving,  the  rows 
one-half  an  inch  apart.  The  border  is  finished  off  by  gathering 
the  ends  of  the  warp  into  a  braid.  The  decoration  on  this 


Plate  139.     dee  page  305 

CLOSELY  TWINED  WALLET  FROM  KAMCHATKA  TO  COMPARE  WITH 
ESKIMO  WORK 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y. 


Plate  140.      See  page  310 

COILED  BASKETWORK  OF  CHUKCHIS  AND  KORYAKS  OF  KAMCHATKA 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y- 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  305 

basket  is  effected  first  by  colouring  warp  strands  black  and 
grouping  them  systematically,  and  also  by  three  narrow 
bands  of  black  twined  weaving  near  the  top.  Its  height  is 
12  inches.  This  specimen,  now  in  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  New  York,  was  collected  by  the  Jesup 
Expedition. 

To  pursue  the  comparison  farther  into  Asiatic  territory, 
Plate  139  is  a  wallet  in  twined  weaving  from  Kamchatka, 
introduced  here  for  comparison  with  the  Chukchi  type,  just 
shown.  The  warp  is  of  coarse  hemp  cord ;  the  weft  or  filling  is 
of  grass  stems  in  natural  colour  dyed  black.  The  bottom  is 
ornamented  with  bands  in  two  colours;  in  each  band  there 
are  alternate  rows  of  black  and  white  stitches  arranged 
perpendicularly;  in  the  next  band  they  are  oblique,  and  in 
the  next  perpendicular,  forming  an  interminable  mass  of 
changing  patterns,  having  a  very  pleasing  effect.  The  body 
is  covered  with  alternations  of  plain  and  variegated  bands 
in  which  the  white  and  black  are  administered  in  triangles, 
rectangles,  chevrons,  and  zigzag  patterns.  The  work  on  this 
wallet  is  finely  done.  The  effect  of  the  ornamentation  is 
very  attractive — on  the  top  the  ends  of  the  warp  are  bent 
down  and  held  in  place  by  loops  of  sinew  thread.  The  work 
nearest  like  this  will  be  found  quite  common  on  the  eastern 
side  of  Bering  Sea  and  on  the  Pacific  coast  of  America.  The 
writer  is  indebted  to  Doctor  Franz  Boas  for  drawing  attention 
to  these  similarities. 

Its  height  is  1 3  inches.  This  specimen,  now  in  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  was  collected  by  the 
Jesup  Expedition. 

The  coiled  variety  of  Eskimo  basketry,  previously  men- 
tioned, consists  of  a  bunch  of  grass  sewed  in  a  continuous 
coil  by  a  whip  stitch  over  the  bunch  and  under  a  few  stems 
in  the  coil  just  beneath,  the  stitch  looping  under  one  of  the 
lower  coil.  When  this  kind  of  work  is  carefully  done,  as 
among  the  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  .and  California, 


3°6 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


and  in  some  exquisite  examples  in  bamboo  from  Siam  and  in 
palm  leaf  from  Nubia,  beautiful  results  are  reached;  but  the 
Eskimo  basketmaker  does  not  prepare  her  foundations  evenly, 
sews  carelessly,  passing  the  thread  sometimes  through  the 
stitches  just  below  and  sometimes  between  them,  and  does  not 
work  her  stitches  home  (fig.  51).  It  can  not  be  said  that  she 


FIG.  134. 

COILED  BASKET. 

Eskimo  Indians,  Alaska. 

Cat.  No.  38,469,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  E.  W.  Nelson. 

has  no  skill  with  the  needle,  for  her  embroideries  in  fur, 
intestines,  and  quill  are  excellent.  Most  of  the  coiled  baskets 
in  the  Eskimo  collection  in  the  National  Museum  were  gathered 
by  E.  W.  Nelson,  and  have  a  round  bit  of  leather  in  the  bottom 
to  start  upon  (fig.  135).  The  shape  is  either  that  of  the 
uncovered  bandbox  or  of  the  ginger  jar.*  Especial  attention 
should  be  paid  to  this  form  of  stitching,  as  it  occurs  again  in 
*  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1900,  pi.  74. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  307 

widely  separated  regions  in  a  great  variety  of  material  and  with 
modifications  producing  striking  effects.  (See  figs.  134,  135.) 
The  Eskimo  women  employ  in  basket -making  a  needle 
made  of  a  bird  bone,  ground  to  a  point  on  a  stone  (fig.  40). 
Fine  tufts  of  reindeer  hair  taken  from  between  the  hoofs  are 
modernly  used  in  ornamentation,  just  as  the  California 


FIG.  135. 
BOTTOM  OF  FIG.  134. 

women  catch  the  stems  of  feathers  under  their  stitches  as 
they  sew. 

Figs.  135  and  136  will  illustrate  this  rude  type  of  coiled 
basketry  of  the  Eskimo  about  Norton  Sound.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  the  art  of  basket-making  is  not  an  old  one  with 
these  people.  They  have  not  learned  how  to  begin  the  work 
from  the  center  of  the  foundation,  and  always  leave  a  circular 
space,  either  vacant  or  to  be  filled  with  some  other  substance. 


308  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

In  the  example  here  shown,  a  piece  of  hide  4  inches  in  diameter 
and  irregular  in  outline  constitutes  the  starting-point.  Holes 
are  punched  around  the  edge  of  this,  as  shown  in  the  detail 
drawing  (fig.  136),  and  the  foundation  of  grass  stems  and 
leaves  is  sewed  immediately  to  this  with  strips  of  the  same 
material,  not  with  any  regularity  or  neatness.  The  basket 
has  a  cover,  which  is  also  interesting  in  its  leather  hinges, 
fastening,  and  handle.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that 
under  the  stimulus  and  demands  of  trade,  the  art  is  improving. 
Specimens  are  at  this  date  brought  home  that  are  vastly 

better  made  than  any  of  the  old 
pieces  in  the  National  Museum; 
charming  cloud  effects  are  produced 
in  sewing  by  using  straws  of  different 
tints. 

This     specimen,     Catalogue     No. 
38,469,  m  tne  United  States  National 
Museum,   was  collected   by    E.    W. 
FIG  "*  Nelson. 

DETAIL  OF  ESKIMO  COILED         Catalogue    No.     1 27,89 1,    in  the 

BASKET. 

United     States     National     Museum, 

is  a  small  jar-shaped  coiled  basket  from  the  Kowak 
River  region,  north  of  Bering  Strait,  Alaska,  collected  by 
Lieutenant  George  M.  Stoney,  United  States  Navy.  The 
foundation  of  the  coil  is  a  small  number  of  slender  grass  stems. 
The  sewing  is  in  material  of  the  same  kind.  The  special 
characteristic  of  this  specimen  is  that,  in  the  sewing,  the  grass 
filament  is  wrapped  once  around  the  foundation  and  on  the 
next  turn  is  locked  in  the  stitch  underneath.  This  is  an 
economical  method  of  working,  but  it  weakens  the  basket. 
The  work  on  this  specimen  is  slovenly  done.  It  has  a  small 
piece  of  leather  in  the  center  of  the  foundation.  Height, 
if  inches.  This  example  is  a  waif.  It  comes  from  the  Arctic 
Ocean  area,  and  most  of  the  pieces  in  the  museum  from  near- 
by are  Tinne'  and  gotten  by  the  Eskimo  in  trade.  More 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  309 

curious  still  is  the  extra  wrap  about  the  foundation  every 
time  a  stitch  is  taken.  The  raffia  coiled  baskets  made  in 
some  of  the  schools  are  similar. 

Catalogue  No.  35,962,  United  States  National  Museum,  is 
a  basket  jar  of  the  Eskimo,  at  Kushunuk,  Alaska.  The 
flat  bottom  is  in  open  twined  weaving  of  grass  stems.  The 
sides  are  in  coiled  work  of  the  same  material,  the  outline  being 
rectangular,  with  rounded  corners.  The  notable  feature  of 
this  piece  is  the  union  of  two  fundamentally  different  methods 
of  manufacture,  the  twined  and  the  coiled. 

Its  height  is  4  11-16  inches,  and  it  was  collected  by  E.  W. 
Nelson. 

Catalogue  No.  36,190,  United  States  National  Museum,  is 
a  coiled  basket  jar  of  the  Eskimo  on  the  Lower  Yukon.  The 
bottom  is  a  piece  of  sealskin  three  inches  in  diameter.  The 
coiled  work  on  this  specimen  is  unique.  A  grass  foundation  is 
held  together  by  half-hitches,  or  button-hole  stitches,  in  the 
same  material,  close  together.  There  are  sixteen  rows.  The 
stitches  pass  over  the  foundation,  lock  with  the  stitches 
underneath,  and  in  returning  make  a  turn  about  the  standing 
part.  The  technic  is  not  half-hitch,  but,  if  the  foundation 
were  pulled  out,  would  resemble  the  twisted  coils  in  the 
Mackenzie  River  game  bags,  muskemoots  (Plate  129),  or  the 
work  on  the  textile  from  Hopewell  mound,  Ohio.  (See  fig.  1 1 6.) 

Catalogue  No.  153,686  in  the  National  Museum  is  a 
coiled  basket  jar  of  the  tribes  on  the  lower  Yukon,  Alaska. 
The  foundation  is  a  flat  piece  of  hard  wood,  varying  in  width, 
overlaid  by  a  small  splint,  which  gives  an  uneven  line  on  the 
outside.  The  sewing  is  done  with  strips  of  willow  rods  without 
bark.  The  stitches  pass  over  both  strips  of  the  foundation 
and  are  caught  between  the  two  strips  of  the  foundation  coil 
underneath.  This  is  the  only  specimen  of  its  kind  in  the 
museum  from  Alaska.  The  use  of  a  broad  foundation  gives 
a  flat  appearance  to  the  surface,  something  like  that  of  the 
Mescalero  basketry  in  New  Mexico.  A  handle  is  attached, 


310  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

the  technic  being  the  same  as  that  of  the  basket.  Height,  about 
4f  inches.  Collected  by  J.  Henry  Turner. 

Catalogue  No.  127,482,  in  the  National  Museum,  is  a 
coiled  basket  jar  of  the  Eskimo,  Togiak  River,  emptying  into 
Bristol  Bay,  Alaska.  The  foundation  is  a  piece  of  sealskin. 
The  rows  of  the  basket  are  built  up  by  coiled  work,  with  straw 
for  foundation  and  sewing.  The  peculiar  characteristic  * 
is  the  neat  and  regular  manner  in  which  the  stitches,  in  passing 
outward,  split  the  underlying  stitch  of  the  previous  coil. 
On  the  surface  these  stitches  pass  from  top  to  bottom  in 
regular  vertical  lines,  resembling  feather  stitch.  The  upper 
margin  is  ornamented  with  a  row  of  birds'  feet.  Its  height  is 
2f  inches,  and  the  specimen  was  collected  by  I.  Applegate. 

Catalogue  No.  127,483,  United  States  National  Museum, 
is  a  coiled  basket  jar  of  the  Eskimo  on  Togiak  River.  A  rude 
ornamentation  is  attempted  on  the  surface  near  the  top  by 
overlaying  the  foundation  with  a  band  of  brown  material 
underneath  the  stitches.  Much  will  be  said  about  this  device 
of  overlaying  among  Indian  tribes  farther  south. 

Its  height  is  2  inches,  and  it  was  collected  by  Mr.  Applegate. 

The  upper  figure  in  Plate  140  is  a  covered  basket  in  coiled 
work  of  the  Chukchi  people  of  Kamchatka.  Foundation,  a 
piece  of  sealskin;  bottom,  coarse  coiled  work  in  straw,  held 
together  by  sewing  in  sinew  thread,  the  stitches  being  one-half 
inch  apart.  The  body  is  built  up  of  coiled  sewing,  similar  to 
that  of  the  Eskimo  of  Alaska.  Decoration,  bands  of  chevron 
pattern  in  black.  Hinge  and  fastening  of  sealskin.  Top 
decorated  with  six-pointed  star.  Diameter,  7  inches. 

This  specimen,  now  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  New  York,  was  collected  by  the  Jesup  expedition. 
The  students  of  culture  will  be  interested  in  the  results  of  this 
exploration,  which  settle  the  question  of  unity  of  industries 
in  the  two  continents. 

*  See  Report  United  States  National  Museum,  1884,  pi.  IV,  showing 
furcated  stitches. 


Plate  141.      See  page  311 

ESKIMO  BASKET,  SHOWING  INTERLOCKING  COILED  WORK,   FROM 
THE  LOWER  YUKON,  ALASKA 

Fred  Harvey  Collection 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  311 

Fig.  2,  on  Plate  140,  is  an  oblong  coiled  basket  of  the 
Chukchi  people  of  Kamchatka.  In  the  foundation,  as  in  the 
Eskimo  baskets,  an  oblong  piece  of  sealskin  is  inserted.  The 
people  of  the  north  region  do  not  seem  to  know  how  to  make 
the  coil  beginning  which  prevails  among  the  Indian  tribes. 

Around  this  sealskin  the  bottom  consists  of  a  continuous 
coil  of  grass  sterns  held  together  by  wide,  open  coiled  sewing  in 
sinew  thread.  The  body  is  built  up  on  a  grass  foundation, 
with  sewing  in  the  same  material,  resembling  precisely  the 
work  done  by  the  Eskimo  of  Port  Clarence.  Three  rows  of 
coiled  work  at  the  top  are  like  that  at  the  bottom,  and  over 
all  is  a  band  of  sealskin  rawhide  with  holes  here  and  there  for 
carrying.  Its  height  is  9  inches.  This  specimen,  now  in 
the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  was 
collected  by  the  Jesup  expedition. 

The  bottom  figure  on  Plate  140  is  a  braided  and  coiled 
wallet  of  the  Koryak  people  of  Kamchatka.  The  foundation 
is  a  strip  of  sealskin.  The  body  is  built  up  in  a  continuous 
coil  of  six-strand  braid,  as  in  making  hats.  The  decoration 
consists  of  alternating  plain  with  coloured  rows  of  braid. 
Loops  of  sealskin  on  the  top  serve  for  fastening  and  carrying. 
This  is  a  rare  type  of  basketry  in  America.  Its  height  is  13 
inches. 

There  is  a  small  specimen  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  obtained  by  Captain  John  Rodgers,  United  States 
Navy,  in  1852-55,  made  in  the  same  way.  As  his  expedition 
was  on  the  Arctic  coast  of  Asia,  this  piece  also  may  have  come 
home  from  that  quarter. 

Plate  141  is  a  covered  coiled  basket  in  the  collection  of 
Fred  Harvey.  It  is  from  the  Lower  Yukon  River  country  and 
represents  one  of  the  best  types  of  Eskimo  work.  Especial 
attention  is  called  to  the  evenness  of  the  stitches,  which  inter- 
lock and  at  intervals  gather  in  a  few  of  the  straws  of  the 
foundation.  The  mottled  surface  of  the  basket  should  also 
be  noted  in  connection  with  the  delightful  effects  produced 


312  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

by  simply  managing  the  natural  colours  of  the  straw  with 
which  the  sewing  is  done.  Attention  has  been  directed  to 
the  glorification  of  this  technical  method  by  the  Mission 
Indians  in  California.  This  specimen  represents  the  very  best 
coiled  work  that  the  Eskimo  can  make. 

ALEUTIAN  BASKETRY 

In  1874,  William  H.  Ball  contributed  to  the  United  States 
National  Museum  several  specimens  of  twined  basketry, 
from  Attu  and  other  islands  far  out  in  the  Aleutian  chain. 
(Catalogue  Nos.  19,476-19,480.)  There  for  the  first  time  this  ex- 
quisite weaving  was  brought  to  light.  Warp  and  weft  are  straws 
of  beach-grass,*  and  the  workmanship  will  compare  favourably 
with  that  of  any  other  basketmakers  in  the  world.  In  the 
conical  wallets,  which  resemble  in  outline  those  of  the  Eskimo 
and  southeastern  Alaskan  tribes,  the  warp  straws  radiate  from 
the  center  of  the  bottom.  On  the  body  the  twined  weft, 
always  the  same  plain  two-strand  work,  is  applied  to  the 
warp,  so  as  to  give  rise  to  several  technical  varieties,  which  may 
be  classified  as  follows: 

1.  Plain  twined  weaving,  the  weft  driven  home  (Plate  142). 

2.  Open  twined  work,  there  being  open  spaces  between  the 
rows  of  weaving,  but  the  warp  strands  are  parallel. 

3.  Crossed  warp,  in  which  there  are  two  sets  of  warp 
elements,  one  half  inclining  to  the  right,  the  other  half  toward 
the  left.     The  twined  weaving  binds  the  decussations,  making 
hexagonal  meshes.     This  type  has  an  interesting  distribution 
on  both  sides  of  the  Pacific. 

4.  Divided  warp.     A  pretty  effect  is  produced  by  these 
Aleut  basketmakers,  who  split  the  warp,  or  divide  it,  if  it 
consists  of  straws  in  pairs,  and  twine  the  weft  straws  around 

*  Elymus  mollis,  Sitka,  Norton  Sound,  Kotzebue  Sound;  Elymus 
arenarius,  Norton  Sound  to  Point  Barrow;  Elymus  sibiricus,  Sitka.  Roth- 
rock,  Smithsonian  Report,  1867.  For  a  description  of  the  Eskimo  and 
Aleuts,  see  W.  H.  Dall,  in  the  Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology,  I, 
1877,  pp.  7-106. 


Plate  142.     See  page  312 

TWINED  WEAVING  IN  CLOSE  AND  IN  OPENWORK  TWINED  WEAVING 

ALEUTIAN  ISLANDS 
Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


Plate  143.     See  page  313 

DETAIL  OF  CROSSING  WARP  STRANDS  IN  ALEUT  BASKET 
Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  313 

two  halves  of  the  same  straw  and  next  around  two  half -straws 
not  of  the  same,  but  of  adjoining  stalks.  If  the  warp  be  of 
straws  by  twos,  the  left-side  member  of  one  pair  is  entwined 
with  the  right-hand  member  of  the  adjoining  pair.  On  the 
next  round  there  is  an  alternation,  the  straws  that  belong 
together  being  entwined.  The  result  of  this  is  a  series  of 
lozenge-shaped  openings,  or  meshes  (figs.  16,  17).  The 
general  appearance  of  the  surface  resembles  a  form  of  needle- 
work called  hemstitching.  The  Aleuts  in  doubling  the  warp 
do  not  place  one  element  behind  another  as  do  the  Tlinkits, 
but  alongside.  This  enables  the  weaver  to  convert  her 
technic  into  some  other  type  in  the  successive  rounds.  She 
may  have  plain  twining,  crossed  warp,  zigzag  warp,  or  hem- 
stitch at  any  moment. 

5.  Diverted  warp.  By  this  is  meant  a  form  of  weaving  in 
which  certain  warp  straws  are  deflected  from  the  perpendicular 
for  a  few  courses  and  then  brought  back  or  changed  to  the 
upright  position  again.  The  result  of  this  is  a  most  pleasing 
effect  (Plate  143)  and  of  the  greatest  variety  on  the  surface. 
Attention  has  been  previously  invited  to  the  similarity  of 
Mound  Builders'  work  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the  playing 
with  the  warp  of  which  the  Aleuts  were  so  fond.  Away  down 
among  the  mummies  of  Peru  are  found  relics  of  weaving  of 
precisely  the  same  sort. 

Ornamentation  is  produced  by  what  looks  like  darning  or 
whipping  one  or  more  rows  of  coloured  grass  after  the  body 
is  formed.  It  is  in  effect  the  false  embroidery  of  the  Tlinkits 
farther  south.  The  worsted  patterns  are  woven  into  the 
texture  and  do  not  show  at  all  on  the  inside.  (See  fig.  16.) 
Another  plan  of  attaching  the  ornamentation  is  very  ingenious, 
but  not  uncommon.  Two  strands  of  coloured  straw  are 
twined,  and  at  every  turn  one  of  the  strands  is  hooked  under  a 
twist  on  the  body  of  the  basket  by  a  kind  of  "aresene"  work 
or  false  embroidery  with  twine.  The  ornament  has  a  bold 
relief  effect  on  the  outside  and  is  not  seen  at  all  on  the  inside. 


314  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

The  making  of  the  beautiful  twined  ware  is  not  new  in  these 
small  islands.  Lisiansky  *  affirms  that  the  Aleuts  make 
baskets  called  "  ishcats,"  in  which  they  keep  all  their  valuables. 

To  begin  with  the  eastern  tribes,  Catalogue  No.  2,192,  in 
the  United  States  National  Museum,  is  a  twined  wallet  of 
the  Aleuts  (Eskimauan  family)  on  Kadiak  Island,  Alaska. 
Native  name,  Enakhtak.  It  is  made  entirely  of  Topkhnaluk, 
or  wild  rye  (Elymus).  The  lower  stalks  are  chosen  because 
they  have  become  yellow  through  want  of  light.  The  wallets 
are  woven  from  the  standing  grass,  generally  in  July  and 
August,  by  the  women,  while  engaged  in  curing  salmon.  In 
order  to  secure  uniformity  in  texture,  the  broader  leaves  are 
split.  An  ordinary  knife  is  used  to  cut  the  grass,  but  no 
other  apparatus  than  nimble  fingers  has  to  do  with  the  manu- 
facture. The  twining  is  called  agankhak.  The  Kadiak  baskets 
are  used  chiefly  in  gathering  berries  and  also  in  straining  a 
kind  of  wine  made  from  them.  This  specimen  was  collected 
by  Lieutenant  G.  T.  Emmons,  United  States  Navy. 

These  wallet  baskets  are  woven  without  ornamentation, 
except,  maybe,  a  line  or  so  near  the  mouth,  often  effected  by 
introducing  one  or  more  rows  of  black  rags,  the  warp  strands 
forming  a  heavy  plaited  rope-like  border,  which  permits 
carriage  by  means  of  cords  through  the  openings.  In  the 
Kadiak  wallets,  the  Tlinkit  border  is  also  imitated  where 
the  warp  ends  are  bent  down  and  held  by  twined  weaving. 

Catalogue  No.  14,978  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum  is  a  typical  old  Aleut  wallet.  The  cylindrical  part 
is  covered  with  meshes  in  diamond  pattern,  shown  in  fig.  9, 
Plate  136.  The  ornamentation  on  the  surface  is  produced  by 
false  embroidery  with  strands  of  red,  blue,  and  black  worsted. 
The  continuous  line  between  the  open  stripes  is  formed  by 
false  whipping  with  a  single  thread  of  worsted  on  the  outer 
stitches  of  one  of  the  twines  of  straw.  The  border  is  a  com- 
plicated braid. 

*  Voyage  Round  the  World,  1803-1806,  London,  1814,  p.  181. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  315 

A  square  inch  of  this  weave,  enlarged  (see  fig.  17),  taken 
from  the  part  of  the  texture  where  the  rectangular  meshes 
pass  into  the  lozenge-shaped,  will  show  the  peculiar  method  of 
separating  the  warp  threads  and  working  the  halves  alternately 
to  the  right  and  to  the  left.*  In  the  bottom  row  the  pairs  of 
warp  straws  are  perpendicular  and  gathered  into  the  twined 
weaving,  so  as  to  produce  rectangular  spaces.  All  the  rows 
above  this  are  in  the  pattern  here  described.  From  the  Attu 
Island ;  collected  by  William  H.  Dall. 

Plate  142  shows  the  fine  close-twined  work  done  on  the 
extreme  western  islands  of  the  Aleutian  chain.  The  specimen 
here  described  is  Catalogue  No.  204,588,  United  States  National 
Museum,  the  gift  of  Mrs.  Mary  L.  D.  Putnam,  of  Davenport, 
Iowa.  Its  noteworthy  features  are  the  crossed  warp  and  the 
patterns  worked  in  coloured  worsted  on  the  surface.  The 
material  is  beach-grass — some  species  of  Elymus.  The  false 
embroidery  on  the  surface,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  is  borrowed 
in  its  method  from  the  Tlinkit  Indians  of  southeastern  Alaska. 
Among  the  old  Aleut  wallets,  of  which  there  are  many  in  the 
National  Museum,  the  weaving  does  not  begin  to  be  so  fine 
as  on  this  later  ware.  It  is  the  same  story  of  progress.  With 
the  possession  of  better  knowledge,  of  superior  tools,  of  gauges 
for  sizing  the  straws,  and,  above  all,  of  such  demands  for  their 
products  as  to  stimulate  emulation  to  its  highest  pitch,  the 
Atka  and  Attu  weavers  have  reached  their  climax. 

Plate  143  is  introduced  to  show  the  technic  of  variety  No. 
5,  diverted  warp,  combined  with  variety  No.  2,  or  openwork. 
Fig.  i  illustrates  the  general  effect  of  this  combination.  Atten- 
tion has  been  called  before  to  the  enigmas  awakened  by  the 
great  variety  and  exquisite  taste  of  these  people,  our  first 
possession  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere.  In  figs,  b  and  c  the 
detail  will  be  better  understood.  In  fig.  b  the  first  has 
parallel  warp.  In  the  next  row  each  pair  of  continuous  warp 
straws  are  crossed.  In  the  third  row  they  proceed  vertically, 

*  See  Report  of  the  United  States  National  Museum,  1884,  pi.  I,  Fig.  b. 


316  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

and  so  do  most  of  them  in  the  fourth  row ;  but  here  and  there 
they  are  crossed  again  back  to  the  position  they  occupied  in 
the  second  row.  These,  too,  continue  in  the  oblique  direction 
in  the  fifth,  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  rows,  crossed  in  each 
with  a  straw  of  that  particular  row.  In  the  upper  course  they 
return  to  the  vertical  position.  The  twined  weaving  is 
precisely  the  same  in  every  case.  It  does  not  vary,  whether 
in  the  closed  or  open  weaving.  No  artistic  effect  is  expected 
therefrom.  In  this  plate,  where  the  decorative  form  is 
started  in  the  bottom  row  and  begins  to  widen  out,  all  of  the 
intersections  within  the  parallelograms  are  crossed.  At  the 
tenth  row,  above  the  upper  border  of  the  drawing,  the  straws 
return  to  their  vertical  position  immediately  over  the  starting- 
point.  These  two  are  only  specimens  of  the  innumerable  ways 
of  producing  effects  in  Aleutian  baskets  by  changes  in  the 
warp. 

It  will  add  to  the  interest  in  the  Attu  weaver  to  see  her  at 
her  work.  Plate  144,  taken  by  Engineer  C.  Gadsden  Porcher, 
of  the  United  States  Revenue  Marine  Service,  shows  her  at  the 
front  door  of  her  barabra,  or  underground  hut.  She  is  essentially 
a  cave-dweller.  The  framework  of  the  house  may  be  drift- 
wood, wreckage,  or  timber  deposited  by  ships.  Over  this, 
moss  from  the  tundra  is  piled,  and  Nature  plants  her  garden. 

It  is  an  error  to  attribute  all  of  the  Aleut  basketry  to  the 
women  of  Attu.  Porcher  has  worked  out  the  types  in  the 
March  number  of  the  Craftsman*  describing  minutely  the 
grasses,  the  methods  of  curing  them,  and  the  different  weaves 
of  Attu,  Atka,  Umniak,  and  Unalashka. 

The  first  thing  that  demands  notice  is  that  she  is  weaving 
upward — upside-down,  a  careless  first  thought  would  say. 
The  bottom  of  her  fine  wallet  is  suspended  from  a  pole,  most 
primitive  of  warping-beams,  stuck  into  the  roof  of  the  barabra. 
John  Smith's  Indians  used  a  limb  of  a  tree  (figs.  147  and  148). 
The  Bristol  Bay  Eskimo  now  employ  a  stick  supported  on  forked 

*  The  Craftsman,  New  York,  March,  1904,  pp.  575-583. 


te  Q    d, 

Jg    I 

0§    1 
SsSCJ 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF    BASKETRY  317 

stakes;  so  do  the  Chilkats  for  their  highly  prized  blankets, 
and  the  tribes  farther  south  to  make  cedar-bark  garments. 
Indeed,  the  loom  is  about  to  be  born.  With  a  lens  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  basketmaker  is  doing  the  best  work,  in  which 
every  variety  of  Aleutian  technic  is  engaged.  Her  costume 
shows  her  to  be  in  the  current  of  world-embracing  commerce 
and  thought.  The  plants  about  her  and  the  precious  work 
of  her  fingers,  together  with  the  ideas  in  her  retentive  mind, 
are  survivals  from  the  past. 

TLINKIT  BASKETRY 

The  basketwork  of  the  Tlinkit  Indians  is  superb.  Every- 
one who  sees  it  is  struck  with  its  delicacy  of  workmanship, 
shape,  and  ornamentation.  Most  of  the  specimens  in  the 
National  Museum  collection  are  of  the  bandbox  shape,  but 
they  can  be  doubled  up  flat  like  a  grocer's  bag.  (Plates  65 
and  67.)  The  material  of  foundation  and  weft  is  the  young 
and  tough  root  of  the  spruce,  split,  and  used  either  in  the 
native  colour  or  dyed  brown  or  black.  The  structure  belongs 
to  the  twined  type  before  mentioned,  and  there  is  such 
uniformity  and  fineness  in  the  warp  and  woof  that  a  water- 
tight vessel  is  produced  with  very  thin  walls.  The  warp  is 
double,  one  splint  resting  on  the  other  and  outside  of  it.  In 
size,  the  wallets  vary  from  a  diminutive  trinket  basket  to  a 
capacity  of  nearly  a  bushel.  All  sorts  of  designs  in  bands, 
crosses,  rhombs,  chevrons,  triangles,  and  grecques  are  produced 
thus:  First,  the  bottom  is  woven  plain  in  the  colour  of  the 
material.  In  a  great  many  pieces  a  row  of  plain  weaving 
alternates  with  the  twined  weaving  for  economy,  in  which 
case  the  woman  carries  along  two  rows  of  work  simultaneously. 
Then,  in  the  building  up  of  the  basket,  bands  of  plain  colour, 
red  and  black,  are  woven  into  the  structure,  having  the  same 
colour  on  both  sides.*  At  the  same  time,  little  squares  or 

*  See  G.  T.  Emmons  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  New  York,  1903,  This  paper  is  the  result  of  twenty  years'  work 
among  the  Tlinkits  by  a  patient  observer,  and  should  be  studied  with  special 
care. 


318  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

other  plain  figures  made  into  designs  are  added  in  aresene, 
or  what  is  here  called  false  embroidery — that  is,  only  half  way 
through — giving  the  most  varied  effect  on  the  outside,  while 
the  inside  shows  only  the  plain  colours  and  the  red  and  black 
bands.  Wild  rye  straws  (Elymus)  for  coarse  work,  and  hair- 
grass  (Deschampsia)  on  fine  work  are  used  in  this  second 
operation,  in  plain  rich  golden  colour  or  dyed,  being  whipped 
over  and  over  along  the  outer  threads  of  the  underlying  woof. 
Other  grasses  for  false  embroidery  are  Panicularia  nervata, 
Calamagrostis  langsdorffii,  Cinna  latifolia,  and  Bromus  sitchen- 
sis.  (See  Plate  145.) 

For  borders  on  Tlinkit  and  Haida  ware  see  pages  115  to 
122,  figs.  73~81- 

The  Tlinkits  recognise  five  styles  of  weave,  not  including 
the  fish  trap,  the  false  embroidery  in  grasses  and  plant  stems, 
and  the  plaited  borders.  These  are  all  in  twined  weaving,  the 
progress  of  the  work  being  from  left  to  right  and  the  outer 
woof  strand  sloping  downward.  Lieutenant  Emmons  gives 
the  native  name  of  each  as  follows : 

1.  Plain  close-twined  weaving,  Wush  tookh  d,  r-kee  ("close 
together  work"),  which  is  perfectly  water-tight,  and  is  the 
standard  weave  of  fully  three-quarters  of  all  baskets  made. 
It  consists  of  the  simple  twining  of  two  woof  strands  around 
each    successive    thickness    of    warp    splints.     The    regular 
weave  produces  the  vertical,  ridge-like  appearance  in  the  line 
of  the  warp,  the  polished  exterior  surface  of  the  root  forming 
the  outside  or  ornamental  face  of  the  work. 

An  openwork  work-basket  in  this  plain  twined  weaving  is 
known  as  Khart  ("  a  strainer,"  literally,  "  will  not  hold  water  "). 
It  is  used  in  trying  out  fish  oil  and  in  cooking  and  straining 
berries. 

2.  Twined  and  checker  weaving,  Khark  gheesut  ("  between, " 
*'in  the  middle  of"),  from  the  introduction  of  a  single  woof 
strand  in  checker  or  wicker  weaving  between  the  lines  of  the 
regular  twined   stitch.     It  gives   a  broken,   irregular  effect 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  319 

from  the  exposure  of  the  warp  along  the  line  of  the  single 
weft,  as  well  as  from  the  dull,  fibrous  surface  of  both  of  the 
strands,  which  are  of  the  coarsest  inner  sections  of  the  root. 
This  weave  is  of  a  later  origin;  the  plain  weaving  has  been 
borrowed  from  the  mainland  and  from  the  more  southern 
people.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  cedar-bark  work  from 
Frederick  Sound  to  the  Straits  of  Fuca.  It  is  wanting  on  the 
oldest  specimens  of  Yakutat  baskets.  Its  use  is  confined  to 
the  coarser  work,  such  as  the  plaque-like  berry,  sewing,  and 
work-baskets  of  the  woman,  the  bottoms  of  the  baskets  and 
the  unexposed  tops  of  the  covered  baskets.  It  is  in  great 
favour  among  the  Chilkat,  who  make  many  large  baskets. 
It  is  used  for  economy,  both  in  the  quantity  and  the  quality 
of  the  material,  as  one  woof  strand  is  saved  in  every  three, 
and  in  the  more  valued  exterior  root  section  the  saving  is 
one-half.  But  its  disadvantages  are  loss  of  strength,  rigidity, 
and  closeness  of  texture,  and  it  does  not  admit  of  the  embroid- 
ery in  grasses  and  plant  stems  which  is  the  characteristic 
feature  of  Tlinkit  basketry.  (See  figs.  140  and  141.) 

3.  Diagonal  twined  weaving,  Hiktch  hee  hd  r-see  (rough 
or  uneven,  like  the  skin  of  the  frog's  back,  from  its  mottled 
character),  is  formed  by  the  simple  twining  of  two  woof 
strands  about  pairs  of  warp  elements.  The  weave  separates 
the  pairs  in  each  superimposed  line  of  woof,  and  breaks  joints 
in  the  units  of  weave,  just  as  in  myriads  of  Attu  and  Ute 
baskets.  (See  Plates  96  and  143.)  It  is,  in  fact,  the  well- 
known  twilled  weaving.  This  weave  was  never  extensively 
used  among  the  Tlinkit,  except  as  a  skip  stitch  in  conjunction 
with  the  ordinary  twining  (No.  i),  whereby  a  number  of  geo- 
metric figures  are  produced  which  form  the  ornamentation  of 
the  Haida  hat  rim  and  the  Chilkat  basket  border. 

Shuck  kuhk  (strawberry  basket)  has  erroneously  been 
classed  as  a  type  of  weave,  but  it  is  simply  a  variation  of  the 
regular  twined  weave,  in  which  the  woof  strands  are  of  different 
colours,  so  that  in  both  the  vertical  and  the  horizontal  lines 


320  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

there  is  produced  a  variety  of  effects,  supposed  to  resemble 
the  seed-covered  surface  of  the  wild  strawberry.  This  char- 
acter of  ornamentation  is  more  commonly  found  in  bands  on 
the  women's  work-basket  and  on  mats  of  basket  covers. 
The  flecking  of  the  surface  of  twined  ware  with  dark  and 
light  spots  is  not  confined  to  the  Tlinkit,  but  will  be  observed 
among  all  Western  tribes  that  have  this  weave.  (See  Plate 

67). 

4.  Crossed-warp  twined  weaving,  Wark  kus-kd  rt   ("eye 
holes,"  from  the  polygonal  meshes  of  the  openwork  weave), 
in  which  the  warp  splints  are  drawn  aside  from  the  perpen- 
dicular at  a  fixed  angle,  the  odd  numbers  trending  one  way 
and  the  even  numbers  the  other.     These  cross  each  other 
successively  in  parallel  series,  just  after  which  they  are  inclosed 
and  held  in  place  by  the  ordinary  twining  of  two  woof  strands. 
The  size  of  the  meshes  is  regulated  by  the  distance  apart  of 
the  spirals  of  the  weave.     This  type  is  used  for  rather  long, 
flat  cases  or  bags,  but  more  particularly  for  spoon  baskets, 
which  are  fitted  with  a  twisted  root  handle  to  hang  them  to 
hooks  or  pegs  on  the  wall.     In  later  years  ornamental  baskets 
are  often  made  in  this  weave. 

5.  Three-strand  twined  weaving,   Uh  ta'hk-ka   (twisted). 
This  gives  a  longer  winding,  rope-like  appearance  to  the  weave 
outside,  while  on  the  inside  the  regular  twining  stitch  in  its 
ridge-like  regularity  is  seen.     It  is  strengthening  as  well  as 
decorative,  and  is  often  met  with  in  circles  at  intervals  near 
the  bottoms  of  the  larger,  older  baskets,  which  are  required 
for  the  heavier  work.     It  is  in  general  use  to-day  as  a  single 
line  of  woof  around  the  outer  circumference  of  the  cylinder 
basket,  where  the  warp  splints  are  bent  upward  to  form  the 
sides.     Its  more  important  use  has  been  in  the  construction  of 
the  crown  of  the  hat  as  well  as  of  the  cylindrical  ornaments 
surmounting  it,  and  other  ceremonial  head  dresses  among  both 
the  Haida  and  the  Tlinkit. 

The  Tlinkits  do  not  seem  to  have  learned,  or  were  forbidden 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


321 


by  economy,  in  doubling  their  warp  splints,  to  use  strips  from 
the  outside  of  the  root  and  to  lay  the  wrong  sides  together,  so 
as  to  have  both  outer  surfaces  smooth.  This  is  shown  in  the 
mixed  twine  and  checker  work  on  the  bottoms  of  baskets. 

Plate  146  is  a  collection  of  Tlinkit  twined  basketry  made 
from  the  roots  of  the  spruce  and  decorated  in  false  embroidery 
with  wild  rye  or  hair-grass,  either  in  the  natural  colour  or  dyed. 


FIG.  137. 

TWINED    BASKET   WALLET. 
Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska. 
Collected  by  J.  B.  White. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  figures  do  not  appear  on  the  inside 
of  the  wallet.  Attention  is  also  called  to  the  very  fine  work- 
manship on  these  old  specimens,  especially  upon  the  large 
one  in  the  middle.  The  ornamentation,  in  its  symbolism, 
has  reference  to  natural  features  and  waterways.  The  com- 
position of  the  ornament  is  in  triangle  and  parallelograms. 

Fig.  137,  Catalogue  No.  21,560,  United  States  National 
Museum,  is  a  .twined  basket  wallet  of  the  Tlinkit  Indians. 
It  is  of  bandbox  shape  when  spread  out,  but  is  here  shown  as 


322 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


folded  for  transportation.  The  bottom,  warp,  and  twine  are 
very  roughly  made  of  spruceroot  splints,  the  former  radiating 
from  the  center.  The  boundary  of  the  bottom  is  a  single  row 
of  three-strand  twine.  This  method  of  ornamenting  and 
strengthening  their  work  was  used  by  the  Tlinkits,  not  only  at 
the  bottom,  but  along  the  sides  and  near  the  top.  The  rest 
of  the  body  is  in  stripes  done  in  false  embroidery. 

Figs.  138  and  139  illustrate  the  method  of  making  false 
embroidery  employed  on  the  basketry  of  the  Tlinkit  Indians. 

As  the  woman  proceeds  with  her 
work,  she  wraps  the  grass  stem  once 
around  each  strand  of  the  regular 
twine  when  it  comes  outside.  On 
the  inside,  therefore,  there  is  no 
appearance  of  ornament;  the  figure 
plainly  shows  how  this  work  is  done, 
and  it  might  be  called  a  type  of 
three -strand  twined  weaving  in 
which  one  of  the  elements  passes 
inside  the  warp.  Ornamentation  on 
this  ware  is  also  produced  by  dyeing 

the  filaments  of  which  the  basket  is  made.  This  specimen 
is  Catalogue  No.  20,726,  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  and  was  collected  by  James  G.  Swan. 

Fig.  140,  from  the  Tlinkit  tribes  about  Fort  Wrangell,  in 
southeastern  Alaska,  is  a  carrying  wallet  for  general  purposes. 
It  is  an  interesting  and  important  specimen  in  that  it  forms 
the  connecting  link  between  common  plain  in-and-out  weaving 
and  twined  work,  both  plain  and  twilled  (styles  i,  2,  3,  and  4  of 
Emmons),  from  the  tribes  immediately  north,  and  the  Haidas. 
The  specimen  is  made  of  spruceroot,  and  the  rows  of  weaving 
are  alternately  twined  and  wicker  over  the  entire  surface  of 
the  wallet  excepting  the  border.  In  examples  already 
described,  this  combination  of  two  weaves  was  seen  on  the 
bottoms,  for  economy,  but  in  this  piece  the  whole  surface  was 


FIG.  138 

ALSE  EMBROIDERY. 
Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska. 
Collected  by  J.  G.  Swan. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  323 

thus  covered.  The  coarser  type  is  shown  in  fig.  141,  from 
the  Tlinkit  Indians,  taken  from  the  bottom  of  basketwork 
inclosing  a  bottle.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  first  few  rounds  are 
plain  twined  work ;  after  that  the  rows  are  far  enough  apart 
to  allow  an  additional  row  of  wickerwork  or  beading. 

Specimen  Catalogue  No.  168,163  m  the  United  States 
National  Museum  was  collected  in  southeastern  Alaska  by 
Herbert  G.  Ogden,  and  specimen  No.  73,755  was  collected 
in  Neah  Bay,  Washington,  by  James  G.  Swan. 

Plate  147  represents  a  group  of  the  Tlinkit  Indian  basket- 
makers.  They  were  named  Kolosch  by  the  Russians  more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago,  because  they  wore  labrets,  or 


FIG.  139. 
DETAIL  OF  FALSE  EMBROIDERY. 

plugs  in  their  lips.  The  woman  on  the  left  side  of  the  picture 
has  a  modest  one  in  her  lower  lip,  but  specimens  in  the  National 
Museum  measure  as  much  as  three  inches  in  diameter.  Owing 
to  the  broken  condition  of  their  island  home,  and  the  large 
ownership  of  personal  property,  they  are  divided  into  innu- 
merable villages  or  Kwans.  The  best-known  basketmakers 
are  Chilkats,  Hoonahs,  Sitkas,  Takoos,  Tongass,  and  Yaku- 
tats.*  It  will  be  noted  in  looking  at  the  women  in  the  group 
that  the  Tlinkits  are  a  well-fed,  vigorous  race.  The  Russians 
spoke  well  of  them,  not  only  for  their  physical  qualities,  but 
for  their  intelligence. 

The  group  is  a  study  in  more  respects  than  in  basketry. 

*  On  the  Ethnology  of  the  Tribes  of  the  West  Coast,  see  Franz  Boas,  in 
the  Proceedings  of  the  British  Association  for  1884  and  following  years. 


324 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


They  are  all  clad  in  trade  goods.  As  to  jewelry,  one  wears 
her  rings  on  her  fingers,  but  the  chief  woman  has  hers  in  the 
septum  of  her  nose.  Old  forms  of  basketry  are  mingled  with 
covered  bottles,  and  the  ubiquitous  can  (Kanastron) ,  formerly 
a  basket,  both  in  Greek  and  Tlinkit,  stands  by  the  side  of  the 
genuine  article.  Before  leaving  the  group,  it  is  worth  while 
to  recall  that  with  thrifty  tribes  new  tricks  of  handicraft  are 
readily  borrowed,  and  too  much  stress  must  not  be  laid  on 
the  assumption  of  identity  of  race  because  of  identity  of  art. 
It  is  worth  while  to  linger  here  a  moment.  The  Attu  woman 


FIG.  140. 

CARRYING  WALLET. 

Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska. 

Collected  by  Herbert  G.  Ogden. 


as  well  as  the  old-time  Algonquian  tribes  did  suspend  warp 
for  baskets  and  matting,  but  here  among  the  Chilkat  is  to  be 
seen  the  pristine  loom.  It  is  not  surprising  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  here  the  Rocky  Mountain  goat  is  at  home. 

On  the  main  land  of  the  northern  Pacific  slope  the  mountain 
goat  (Oreamnos  montanus)  abounds.  From  the  Chilkat 
Indians  about  Mount  St.  Elias  southward  to  the  Nez  Perec's, 
of  Idaho,  blankets  are  woven  from  the  wool.  These  fabrics 
are,  in  their  manufacture,  the  transition  from  basketry  to 
loomwork.  They  are  in  twined  weaving.  The  only  shuttles 
are  the  skilful  fingers  of  Indian  women ;  the  warp  hangs  down 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  325 

loose  from  a  pole  or  bar,  and  the  work  of  twine  is  upward, 
precisely  as  in  Haida  basketry.     (See  Plate  148.) 

Vernon  Bailey  says  of  the  material  that  the  winter  coat  of 
the  mountain  goat  is  a  dense  piece  of  long,  soft  wool,  with 
strong,  coarse  hairs  scattered  through  it.  In  spring  and  early 
summer,  when  the  wool  is  being  shed  and  hangs  in  loose  strings 
on  the  goat  it  catches  on  bushes  and  rocks  and  the  low  branches 


FIG.  141. 
TWINED    AND  WICKER  WEAVE. 

Tlinkit  Indians,  Alaska. 
Cat.  No.  73,755,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  J.  G.  Swan. 

of  timber-line  trees.  On  the  slopes  above  timber  line  in  May 
and  June  every  bush  and  tall  dry  weed  will  be  festooned  with 
tufts  of  wool  that  could  be  picked  off  in  handfuls.  In  a  good 
goat  region  the  Indians  might  gather  wool  enough  for  a  large 
part  of  their  clothing  without  the  trouble  of  killing  one. 

Fig.  142  is  a  section  of  a  wallet  made  by  the  Chilkat  Indians. 
The  material  is  the  young  root  of  spruce.  It  is  here  introduced 
to  show  the  effect  on  the  surface  of  several  kinds  of  weaving 


326 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


before  described.  Beginning  at  the  bottom  of  the  drawing 
there  are  ten  rows  of  alternate  plain  twined  and  checker  weav- 
ing. At  the  margin  of  this  lower  portion,  and  also  at  the  upper 
margin  of  the  drawing,  will  be  found  a  row  of  twined  work  set 
on  the  regular  twined  weaving  for  strength  and  ornament. 
The  upper  portion  of  the  wallet  is  a  mixture  of  plain  twined 
work  over  one  warp  splint  and  twilled  twine  weaving  over 

two  warp  splints,  mak- 
ing a  diagonal  pattern 
on  the  surface.  The 
rope  is  made  of  the 
same  material. 

HAIDA  BASKETRY 

The  Haida  Indians 
live  on  Queen  Char- 
lotte Archipelago  and 
adjacent  islands.  Their 
basketwork  is  all  in 
twined  weaving,  and 
differs  from  that  of  the 
Tlinkits  in  artistic  fin- 
ish only,  owing  prob- 
ably to  the  demands 
of  trade.  Their  wallets 
of  spruce  are  devoid  of 

decoration,  save  here  and  there  a  band  in  plain  black 
colour;  but  hats  made  by  these  Indians  are  masterpieces 
in  execution  and  ornamental  weaving.  The  crown  is 
in  three-strand  or  plain  twined  weaving  of  the  most  delicate 
workmanship,  and  the  fabric  is  perfectly  water-tight  when 
thoroughly  wet.  Ornamentation  is  introduced  into  the  brims 
by  a  series  of  diamond  patterns  in  twilled  weave  covering  the 
whole  surface.  This  decoration  is  produced  thus:  Beginning 
at  a  certain  point,  the  weaver  includes  two  warp  strands  in  a 


FIG.  142. 

WALLET. 

Chilkat  Indians,  southeastern  Alaska. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


327 


half  twist  instead  of  one ;  then  makes  two  regular  twists  around 
single  warp  strands.  The  next  time  she  weaves  around  she 
repeats  the  process,  but  her 
double  twist  is  one  warp  stem 
in  advance  of  or  behind  its 
predecessor.  A  twilled  effect 
of  any  shape  may  be  thus 
produced,  and  rhombs,  tri- 
angulated fillets,  and  chev- 
rons be  made  to  appear  on 
either  surface.  (See  figs.  143 
and  144.) 

The  fastening  off  of   the 
work  is  done  either  by  bend- 
ing down  the  free  ends  of  the  warp  and  shoving  them  out  of 
sight  under  the  twists  of  the  web,  or  a  braid  of  four  strands 


FIG.  143. 
HAT  IN   FINE  TWINED  WEAVING. 

Haida  Indians,  British  Columbia. 

Cat.  No.  89,033  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by 

James  G.  Swan. 


FIG.  144. 
DETAIL  OF    FIG.   143- 


328 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


forms  the  last  row, 
set  on  so  that  the 
braid  shows  outside 
and  only  one  strand  at 
a  time  shows  inside. 
The  ends  of  the  warp 
splints  are  then  crop- 
ped close  to  the  braid 
or  it  is  held  on  by  a 
row  of  plain  twining. 
Special  attention 
should  be  paid  to  the 
fact  that  the  orna- 
mentation on  these 
hats  is  painted  and 
not  woven  (see  fig. 
143).  Not  far  away, 
on  the  mainland,  the 
same  motives  appear 
on  blankets ,  woven  in- 
to the  texture.  Figs. 
143  and  144  show  the 
head,  wings,  feet,  and  tail  of  the  duck,  laid  on  in  black  and  red 
in  the  conventional  manner  of  ornamentation  in  vogue  among 
the  Haidas  and  used  in  the  reproduc- 
tion of  their  various  totems  on  all  of 
their  houses,  wood  andslate  carvings, 
and  the  ornamentation  of  their  imple- 
ments.* Shells,  beads,  and  feathers 
are  often  sewed  on  in  profusion. 

*  A  very  interesting  instance  of  survival 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  rag  carpets  of  these  In- 
dians. The  missionaries  have  taught  the 
women  to  save  up  their  rags  and  to  cover 
their  floors  with  pretty  mats.  They  are 
allowed  to  weave  them  in  their  own  way, 
however,  and  the  result  is  constructed  on  the  FlG-  »4<5- 

ancient  twined  model.  DETAIL  OF  FIG.  145- 


FIG.  145. 
TWINED  OPENWORK  BASKET. 

Haida  Indians. 
Cat.  No.  88,964,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  James  G.  Swan. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


329 


Catalogue  No.  88,964,  collected  by  J.  G.  Swan,  is  a  twined 
openwork  basket  of  spruceroot 
made  by  the  Haida  Indians. 
This  piece  of  coarse  workmanship 
shows  both  phases — the  open  and 
the  close  weave  in  rough  inner 
splints.  The  handle  is  a  twine  of 
the  same  material  fastened  into 
the  weaving  while  it  is  in  progress. 
The  border  is  effected  by  bending 
down  the  warp  elements  at  the 
rim  externally  and  sewing  them 
in  place  with  a  row  of  twined 
weaving. 

A  square  inch  of  this  specimen 
taken  near  the  top,  where  the 
openwork  and  the  closework 
come  together,  is  shown.  (See 
figs.  145,  146.) 

Fig.  147  shows  an  unfinished 
Haida  cylindrical  basket  attached 
to  the  stake  or  frame  on  which  it 
is  woven.  In  order  to  explain  the 
process  of  manufacture,  the  bot- 
tom is  in  plain  twined  weaving ; 
at  the  border  where  this  joins  the 
cylindrical  side  is  a  row  of  three- 
strand;  and  four  rows  of  plain 
twined  weaving  of  the  body  come 
next,  the  unfinished  portion  ex- 
hibiting the  warp  as  it  appears 
before  weaving. 

Especial     attention    is     here 

FIG.  147. 

called   to   the    sharpened  stake,  UNFINISHED  BASKET. 

Haida  Indians. 
Which  has  a  Circular  board  On  top.  Collected  by  James  G.  Swan. 


33° 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


This  is  driven  into  the  ground,  and  the  woman  seated  works 
upward  instead  of  downward,  as  in  most  cases.  This  speci- 
men, Catalogue  No.  89,033  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  was  procured  in  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  by 
James  G.  Swan.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  an  ancient 
drawing  showing  how  the  Virginia  women  made  basketry, 
the  woman  is  seated  in  precisely  the  same  fashion  and  is 
working  from  below  upward.  (See  fig.  148  and  Plate  144.) 

Plate  149  represents  old 
twined  wallets  of  the  Haida 
Indians,  Queen  Charlotte 
Islands,  British  Columbia. 
The  material  is  splints  of 
spruce,  some  of  which  have 
been  dyed  simply  by  immers- 
ing in  dark-coloured  mud. 
The  Haidas  used  little  colour 
decoration  other  than  black 
bands  in  their  work,  but  they 
have  learned  the  art  of  pro- 
ducing figures  by  including 
VIRGINIA  INDIAN  WOMAN  WEAVING  more  tnan  warP  element  in 


«*    w  the  twining.     They  also  know 

After  W.  H.  Holmes.  * 

the  art  of   three-strand 

twined  work,  as  will  be  seen  on  the  upper  border  of  the  two  larg- 
er wallets.  The  borders  are  finished  off  by  false  embroidery. 
Plate  150  represents  a  company  of  Haida  Indian  basket- 
makers,  photographed  by  J.  G.  Swan.  They  are  in  modern 
dress,  but  wear  nose-ring  and  labret  common  to  their  tribe, 
and  are  also  weaving  upward. 

THE  FRASER-COLUMBIA  REGION 

Basketry  is  the  most  expressive  vehicle  of  the  tribe's  individu- 
ality, the  embodiment  of  its  mythology  and  folklore,  tradition, 
poetry,  art,  and  spiritual  aspiration.  —  NELTJE  BLANCHAN. 

The  next  general  area  for  study  will  be  the  drainage  region 
of  the  Fraser  River  and  the  Columbia  River.     The  families  to 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  331 

be  visited  will  be  the  Chimmeseyan,Wakashan  or  Aht,  Salishan, 
Shahaptian,  and  Chinookan.  Other  smaller  groups  are  scat- 
tered around  and  will  be  treated  at  the  proper  place  in  the  text. 
The  transition  from  southeastern  Alaska  to  this  area  is  almost 
imperceptible  in  some  respects,  and  radical  in  others.  The 
Tlinkit  false  embroidery  will  not  disappear,  but  it  will  be 
remanded  to  a  far  humbler  place.  The  roots  and  inner  bark 
of  the  cedar  will  occupy  the  front  rank.  Coiled  and  imbricated 
work,  unknown  among  the  Tlinkits  and  Haidas,  will  bloom  out 
in  British  Columbia  and  Washington.  The  semiflexible  wallet 
will  be  replaced  by  the  rigid  cooking  basket  and  the  soft  bags 
of  hemp.  The  differentiation  from  the  next  area  south  of  it 
will  also  be  marked. 

The  small  Chimmeseyan  family,  also  called  Tsimshian  and 
better  known  as  Nass,  are  the  extreme  northern  of  the  group. 
Their  basketry  is  of  root  and  runs  largely  into  the  mixed  twined 
checker,  and  twilled. 

Necessarily  coming  southward  from  the  spruceroot  coun- 
try to  the  cedar  area  would  have  the  effect  to  change  much  of 
the  basketry  from  rigid  surfaces  to  flexible  and  from  twined 
weaving  to  checker  and  twilled  work.  The  National  Museum 
possesses  no  specimens  of  Chimmeseyan  ware  of  striking  indi- 
viduality. 

The  Wakashan  tribes  occupy  northern  and  western  Van- 
couver Island,  the  coast  of  British  Columbia,  and  a  small  point 
of  land  in  the  northwest  corner  of  Washington.  They  are  gen- 
erally known  by  the  name  Aht  or  Nootka  on  Vancouver  Island, 
and  include  Boas's  Kwakiutl  and  the  Bella  Bella  and  Haeltzuk 
on  the  mainland.  In  recent  years  they  have  been  studied  by 
Boas,  by  Tolmie  and  Dawson,  and  by  Swan. 

A  list  of  authorities  will  be  found  given  by  J.  W.  Powell* 
and  by  Boas.f 

In  addition  to  the  matting,  both  checker  and  twilled, 

*  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1891,  p.  128. 
t  Reports  to  the  British  Association,  1889-1891. 


332  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

quite  common  throughout  this  region,  the  Wakashan  tribes  of 
Vancouver  Island  and  Washington  make  a  type  of  basketry 
which  is  called  in  this  paper  the  bird  cage  or  wrapped  twined 
work,  in  which  one  element  of  the  weft  remains  inside  of  the 
basket,  and  the  other  element,  which  is  more  flexible,  is 
wrapped  about  the  decussations  of  the  warp  and  the  rigid  ele- 
ment of  the  weft.  It  might  also  be  called  the  "  fish  trap  "  style, 
since  without  doubt  the  finer  basketry  is  the  lineal  descendant 
of  the  rude  wicker  fish  trap.  Imagine  a  number  of  stakes 
driven  into  the  ground  pretty  close  together.  A  horizontal 

pole  is  laid  against  them  in  the 
rear,  and  by  the  wrapping  of  a 
withe  around  the  pole  and  each 
upright  stake  diagonally  on  the 
outside  and  vertically  on  the 
inside,  a  spiral  fastening  is  pro- 
duced. It  is  shown  in  the 
openwork  basket,  Catalogue 
No.  23,480,  United  States 
DETAIL  OF  WRAPPED  BASKET.  National  Museum,  made  by  a 

Clallam  Indians.  >-«    -i-i  T     J'  TM_' 

collected  by  j.  G.  Swan.  Clallam  Indian.     This  wrapping 

crosses  the  two  fundamentals  in 

front  at  an  angle  and  the  horizontal  frame  piece  in  the  rear  at 
right  angles,  and  the  lacing  may  always  run  in  the  same 
direction,  or  the  alternate  rows  in  opposite  directions,  as  in 
fig.  149.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  soft  and  pliable  material  this 
operation  pushes  the  uprights  forward  a  little,  giving  to  the 
fabric  an  appearance  of  the  lathe  work  on  the  back  of  a  watch. 
(See  fig.  150.) 

The  Wakashan  weaving  is  not  confined  to  this  particular 
technic,  but,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  illustrations  here  shown 
(fig.  151),  it  is  checkerwork  on  the  bottom,  three-ply  twine 
between,  separating  the  checkerwork  from  the  plain  twine1 
commencement  of  the  body.  The  sides  are  built  up  of  cedar 
bark  warp,  both  vertical  and  horizontal,  and  a  wrapping  of 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


333 


golden-coloured  grass  stems.  These  straws  take  different 
coloured  dyes  readily,  and  so  the  Makahs  have  learned  to  orna- 
ment their  baskets  with  geometric  patterns  in  black,  yellow, 
drab,  red,  blue,  etc.  The  pattern,  therefore,  is  alike  on  both 
sides,  although  the  wrappings  are,  as  in  Clallam,  Nez  Perce\ 
and  other  specimens,  inclined  on  the  outside  and  vertical  on 
the  inside. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  23,346  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,   was  collected,   with  many  others    (Nos. 


FIG.  150. 

WRAPPED  TWINED    BASKET. 

Makah  Indians,  Cape  Flattery 

Collected  by  James  G.  Swan. 


23.343  to  23,368),  in  Neah  Bay,  Washington,  by  James  G. 
Swan.     (See  figs.  149-151.) 

In  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Harvard  University  are  eight 
old  basket  hats,  supposed,  by  C.  C.  Willoughby,  to  have  origi- 
nated among  the  Southern  Wakashan  tribes,  probably  the 
Nutkas.  Lewis  and  Clark  described  them  as  "  made  of  cedar 
bark  and  bear-grass  interwoven  in  the  form  of  a  European 
hat  with  small  brim.  They  formed  a  small  article  of  traffic 
with  the  whites,  and  their  manufacture  is  one  of  the  best  exer- 


334 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


tions  of  Indian  industry."  They  say  that  "the  only  covering 
for  their  head  is  a  hat  made  of  bear-grass  and  the  bark  of  cedar 
interwoven  in  a  cone  form  with  a  knob  of  the  same  shape  at 
the  top.  The  colours  are  generally  black  and  white  only,  and 
the  designs  are  squares,  triangles,  and  rude  figures  of  canoes, 
and  seamen  harpooning  whales."  Captain  Cook  found  the 
same  form  of  head  covering  worn  by  the  Indians  of  Nutka 

Sound.     (See  Plate  151.) 

Mr.  Willoughby*  describes 
the  hats  in  the  Peabody  Mu- 
seum (Plate  151)  as  follows: 

They  are  all  in  twined  weav- 
ing, and  are  made  principally  of 
cedar  bark  and  grass  spires.  The 
construction  is  double,  as  shown 
in  the  cross-section  (fig.  153). 
Each  headpiece  consists  really  of 
two  hats,  an  inner  and  an  outer 
one,  joined  at  the  rim,  the 
last  few  pairs  of  twisted  woof 
elements  of  the  outer  hat  inclos- 
ing also  the  ends  of  the  warp  of  the  inner.  The  inner  hat,  or 
lining,  is  coarsely  but  neatly  woven  of  cedar  bark,  and  only  in  one 
specimen  is  there  a  knob  at  the  top  of  the  lining  corresponding  to 
that  of  the  outer  hat.  Upon  the  under  side  at  about  three  inches 
from  the  rim  each  warp  element  is  doubled  upon  itself,  forming  a 
loop  about  three-fourths  of  an  inch  long.  Through  these  loops  is 
run  a  strong  double  cord  of  Indian  hemp.  The  loops  are  bound 
together  by  twined  weaving  (fig.  152),  and  form  an  inner  rim 
-edged  with  the  cord  of  hemp,  which  fits  the  head  snugly.  To  this 
is  fastened  the  thong  which  passes  beneath  the  chin  of  the  wearer. 
The  exterior  or  outer  hat  is  woven  principally  of  grass  spires 
and  cedar  bark.  In  most  of  the  specimens  a  narrow  strip  below 
the  knob  is  made  of  fine  cedar  roots.  The  warp  appears  to  be 
formed  of  split  roots,  and  is  fine  and  strong.  The  grass  of  the  woof 
was  originally  an  ivory  white,  the  selected  cedar  bark  used  in  con- 
junction with  it  being  usually  stained  a  dark  brown  or  black. 
*  American  Naturalist,  XXXVII,  1903,  pp.  65-68. 


FIG.  151. 
BOTTOM  OF  MAKAH  BASKET. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY 


335 


Each  strand  of  the  twisted  pair  of  woof  elements  forming  the 
design  is  composed  of  a  grass  spire  overlaying  a  strip  of  cedar  bark 
of  the  same  width,  the  strand  thus  formed  being  white  upon  one 
side  and  black  upon  the  other.  These  double  strands  are  used 
not  only  where  figures  appear,  but  throughout  the  groundwork  of 
the  design  as  well.  The  figures  are  principally  black  upon  a  white 
ground.  In  forming  them,  the  strands  are  simply  reversed,  the 
black  sides  which  were  concealed  beneath  the  grass  spires  in  the 


FIG.  152. 

DETAIL  OF   NUTKA  HAT. 

After  C.  C.  Willoughby.  Peabody  Museum. 


FIG.  153. 

CROSS-SECTION  OF  NUTKA  HAT. 
After  C.  C.  Willoughby,  Peabody  Museum. 


white  background  being  carried  outward.  In  some  of  the  speci- 
mens the  knob  at  the  top  is  woven  separately  and  afterward  joined 
to  the  hat.  (See  figs.  152  and  153.) 

Comparing  the  descriptions  with  the  technical  processes 
worked  out  in  this  paper,  it  is  evident  that  the  Nutka  tribes 
understood  what  is  called  overlaying.  It  is  not  the  Makah 
wrapped  weaving,  nor  like  the  Nez  Perce"  and  other  Shahaptian 
weave,  but  will  be  found  in  the  Modoc  and  some  Calif ornian 
tribes  as  well  as  abundantly  among  the  Salish  (see  Plate  155, 
fig.  5).  The  double  hat  is  suggestive  of  the  Orient,  from 
which  the  royal  Spanish  fleet  returned  by  way  of  Vancouver 
every  year  for  two  centuries  (1570-1770). 

The  National  Museum  has  a  Quilleute  (Chimakuan)  example 
of  twilled  weaving  from  Vancouver  Island,  which  should  be 


336  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

compared  with  Clallam  ware.  It  is  a  large  fish-basket  made 
from  the  split  root  of  a  cedar.  Attempts  at  ornamentation 
are,  first,  in  using  alternately  the  smooth,  natural  wood  and 
the  inner,  coarse  surface  of  the  splint,  also  by  introducing 
strips  in  cedar  root  with  the  bark  adherent,  and  finally  by 
laying  on  the  outside  of  certain  strips  leaves  of  bear-grass. 
With  this  variety  of  material,  although  the  basket  is  as  coarse 
as  it  can  be,  the  effect  is  excellent.  The  finishing  off  is  in  three 
rows  of  twined  weaving,  in  which  black  yarn  and  bear-grass 
are  laid  on  the  fiber  to  give  variety  and  colour.  The  upright 
elements  in  the  weaving  are  bent  down  on  the  inside  and  held 
together  by  a  continuous  row  of  button -hole  stitches.  On  the 
border  is  a  scallop  formed  by  a  two-strand  rope  which  passes 
underneath  the  border,  back,  and  through  itself.  Dimensions : 
Height,  1 8  inches;  width,  24  inches.  Collected  by  C.  F. 
Newcombe.  (See  Plate  152.) 

Plate  153  is  a  delightful  mixture  of  two  extremes  in  cul- 
ture. Two  Makah  or  Nutka  women  are  clad  in  calico,  woolen 
blanket,  piano  cover,  bandana  handkerchiefs,  etc.,  not  neglect- 
ing the  latest  patent  in  safety  pins.  They  are  seated  on  a 
mat  of  cattail  (Typha  latifolia)  stems,  sewed  together  in  gen- 
uine aboriginal  fashion,  known  before  Columbus.  And  their 
fingers  are  following  their  conservative  thoughts  as  if 
these  cunning  weavers  had  been  born  centuries  ago.  They 
are  making  from  filaments  of  cedar  bark  and  leaves  of  squaw- 
grass  the  kind  of  twined  weaving  called  wrapped  in  this  work 
(figs.  13,  14).  The  warp  is  plain,  twisted  from  cedar  bark. 
One  element  of  the  weft  is  of  the  same  material  and  laid  hori- 
zontally inside  the  warp;  the  other  weft  element,  of  squaw- 
grass  (Xerophyllum  tenax),  is  wrapped  in  a  continuous  coil 
about  the  intersections  of  the  other  two  elements.  The  photo- 
graph is  from  Capt.  D.  F.  Tozier. 

One  of  the  largest  families  and  most  diversified,  so  far  as 
industries  are  concerned,  are  the  Salishan  tribes,  east  and  south 
of  the  Wakashan.  A  small  and  detached  body  of  them  is 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  337 

tor  be  found  on  Bentinck  Arms,  northern  British  Columbia, 
hemmed  in  on  the  east  by  Athapascan  tribes  and  on  the  west 
by  Wakashan  tribes.  The  rest  of  the  family  are  spread  out 
in  British  Columbia  and  Washington,  extending  from  Puget 
Sound  northward,  southward,  and  eastward,  across  Idaho  and 
even  into  Montana.  A  small  body  of  the  same  family  are  on 
the  Oregon  coast,  about  the  forty-fifth  parallel. 

Situated,  as  these  tribes  are,  in  the  midst  of  so  many  other 
linguistic  families,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  a  great  variety 
in  the  types  of  their  basketry.  In  the  plates  here  shown 
(Plates  154  and  155),  fig.  i  represents  plain  checker  weaving ; 
fig.  2,  twilled  weaving,  in  which  both  warp  and  weft  pass 
over  two;  fig.  3,  another  form  of  twilled  work,  in  which  warp 
and  weft  pass  alternately  over  two  and  under  one.  Figs.  4 
and  5  show  the  methods  of  coiled  and  imbricated  sewing  in 
the  bottom  and  on  the  body  of  a  Thompson  River  or  a  so-called 
Klikitat  basket.  Especial  attention  will  be  called  later  to 
these  types.  Fig.  6  is  plain  twined  weaving  in  openwork. 
Fig.  7  is  an  example  of  plain  twined  weaving  in  openwork 
over  crossed  warp  of  a  special  character  in  which  every  alter- 
nate one  is  vertical  and  the  other  inclined.  It  can  be  easily 
seen  by  looking  at  the  figure  that  the  odd  warps  are  arranged 
vertically  and  parallel,  every  other  one  turns  to  the  left  and 
is  caught,  not  in  the  twist  just  above  it,  but  in  the  first  one 
beyond.  Figs.  8  and  9  show  the  outside  and  inside  of  latticed 
or  bird  cage  work;  fig.  10,  a  form  of  twined  work  in  which 
the  tough  fiber  is  overlaid  by  grass  leaves  or  other  colored 
fiber,  adding  to  the  ornamentation  but  not  to  the  strength; 
fig.  u,  false  embroidery,  in  which  the  outer  element  of  the 
twine  is  wrapped  with  an  additional  filament.  Myron  Eells, 
who  has  spent  many  years  among  them,  and  to  whom  Plates 
154  and  155  are  to  be  credited,  asserts  that  styles  of  weaving 
peculiar  to  the  stocks  near  by  are  practised  by  a  few  women 
of  Salishan  tribes.  This  can  be  accounted  for  in  two  ways — 
women  from  these  outside  stocks  may  have  married  into  the 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 

tribes  under  consideration,  or,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  the 
Salish  women,  in  order  to  leam  something  new,  have  taken 
up  the  methods  of  their  neighbours. 

Immediately  south  of  the  Haidas  and  Tlinkits,  the  bark 
of  the  white  cedar  (Thuja  plicatd)  becomes  common,  the  inner 
portion  is  quite  tenacious,  and,  since  filaments  of  almost  any 
required  width  and  length  may  be  obtained,  checkerwork 
weaving  is  in  demand  for  mats,  sails,  receptacles  for  all  sorts 
of  objects,  parts  of  house  furniture,  and  even  of  clothing.  The 
figure  here  shown  is  a  typical  example  of  many  hundreds  of 


FIG.  1 54. 

CHECKERWORK   BASKET. 

Bilhula  Indians,  British  Columbia. 

Collected  by  James  G,  Swan. 

such  baskets  to  be  found  in  collections.  The  bottom  and 
sides  are  in  the  same  type  of  weaving.  By  an  endless  variety 
of  real  and  proportional  width  of  warp  and  weft  and  by  colour- 
ing some  of  the  strips  an  indefinite  number  of  patterns  may  be 
produced.  (See  fig.  154.) 

In  many  cedar  bark  receptacles  of  this  region  the  two  sets 
of  filaments — warp  and  weft — run  diagonally — that  is,  they 
are  not  woven  as  in  a  loom,  but  the  maker  begins  at  the  corner. 
Looked  at  vertically,  the  surface  has  a  diamond  rather  than 
a  checker  appearance,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  maker 
the  intersections  are  square.  Again,  but  much  more  rarely, 
three  sets  of  filaments  are  involved,  two  belonging  to  the  warp 
and  the  other  one  to  the  weft.  The  warp  elements  cross  at 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  339 

right  angles  or  less,  and  the  weft  elements  run  across  through 
the  intersections,  making  a  series  of  rhombs.  This  same  tech- 
nic  is  almost  universal  in  Japan. 

In  addition  to  the  oblique  method  of  weaving  the  checker 
patterns  in  cedar  bark,  occasional  diagonal  or  twilled  weav- 
ing is  to  be  seen  in  the  same  area. 

A  large  collection  of  these  was  gathered  by  James  G. 
Swan  along  the  coast  of  British  Columbia,  and  are  now  for 
examination  in  the  United  States  National  Museum. 

Ornamentation  in  bark  work  is  effected  both  by  introducing 
different  coloured  strands  and  by  varying  the  width  of  the  warp 
and  the  woof  threads.  In  many  examples  the  bottom  of  the 
basket  is  bordered  and  outlined  with  one  or  more  rows  of  the 
twined  or  plaited  style  of  weaving  to  give  greater  stability  and 
definition  to  the  form.  Cedar  mats  of  large  size  and  made 
with  the  greatest  care  enter  as  extensively  into  the  daily  life 
of  the  Indians  of  this  vicinity  as  do  the  buffalo  robes  into  that 
of  the  Dakota  Indians. 

The  Bilhulas  made  very  neat  baskets,  called  "  Zeibusqua," 
as  well  as  hats  and  water-tight  vessels,  all  of  fine  cedar  roots. 

They  boil  the  cedar  root  until  it  becomes  pliable  to  be  worked 
by  the  hand  and  beaten  with  sticks,  when  they  pick  the  fibers  apart 
into  threads.  The  warp  is  of  a  different  material — sinews  of  the 
whale,  or  dried  kelp  thread. 

They  also  are  expert  in  weaving  the  inner  bark  of  the  cedar. 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  a  material  so  easily  woven  should 
have  found  its  way  so  extensively  in  the  industries  of  this  stock 
of  Indians.  Neither  should  we  wonder  that  the  checker  pat- 
tern in  weaving  should  first  appear  on  the  west  coast  among  the 
only  people  possessing  a  material  eminently  adapted  to  this 
form  of  manipulation.  It  is  only  another  example  of  that 
beautiful  harmony  between  man  and  nature  which  delights 
the  anthropologist  at  every  step  of  his  journey. 

Farther  south  in  British  Columbia  a  Salish  people  demand- 
ing careful  attention  are  those  formerly  called  Couteau  or  Knife 


34° 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


Indians  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  people.  Their  home 
is  the  southern  interior  of  British  Columbia,  mostly  east  of  the 
Coast  Range,  and  is  about  one  hundred  miles  long  and  ninety 
miles  wide.  Their  basketry  is  described  by  James  Teit,  of 
Spences  Bridge,  British  Columbia.*  The  basketwork  above 
Lytton  is  of  birch  bark,  spruce  bark,  and  willow  twigs,  and  the 
rims  are  ornamented  with  stitches  made  from  the  bark  of 
Prunus  demissa.  The  Indians  on  the  lower  division  of  the 
Thompson  River  and  on  the  Upper  Fraser  make  beautiful 
coiled  and  imbricated  baskets  of  cedar  roots  (Thuja  plicata). 
This  type  of  basketry  is  also  made  by  the  Chilcotin  and  Lillooet, 
and  Shushwap,  who  are  said  to  employ  spruceroot. 

William  Arnott,  of  North  Bend,  gives  the  following  Thomp- 
son River  Indian  names  for  baskets:  Tsai,  ordinary  oblong 
style;  spanach,  small  oblong  and  square;  spa  panach,  very 
small ;  nikwoeten,  round ;  spanikwoeten,  small  round ;  sklokw, 
very  large. 

Wallets  are  made  of  a  twined  weaving,  the  character  of 
which  is  shown  in  Teit's  fig.  132.  Designs  on  these  fabrics 
are  in  embroidery  or  by  weaving  coloured  grasses  or  bark  twine 
into  the  fabric,  as  shown  in  the  same  figure.  This  style  of 
weaving  seems  to  have  been  acquired  recently  through  inter- 
course with  the  Sahaptin. 

The  Lower  Thompson  Indians  weave  mats  of  strips  of  cedar 
bark  of  the  same  style  as  those  used  by  the  coast  Indians 
(Teit's  fig.  133). 

At  the  present  day,  rag  mats  or  rugs  are  often  made  from 
scraps  of  cloth,  calico,  etc.  The  patterns  on  these  are  mostly 
the  same  as  those  on  basketry. 

The  Thompson  Indians  also  practise  twined  weaving  in 
coarse  bagging  and  in  matting  from  tule  (Stir pus  lacustris), 
bulrush  (Stir pus  maritimus),  and  the  twined  weft  of  the  bark 
of  Apocynum  canndbinum.  These  Indians  also  know  how  to 

*  Memoirs  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  II,  1900,  pp. 
163-392. 


Plate  154.     See  page  33  7  * 

VARIETIES  OF  TECHNIC  PRACTICED  BY  SALISH  WOMEN, 
WASHINGTON 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  341 

make  mats  by  stringing  them.  The  reed  or  stick  is 
perforated  at  two  or  more  places  and  a  cord  passed  through 
the  holes. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  among  them  also  blankets  made 
from  twisted  strips  of  rabbit  skin  used  as  weft  and  held  together 
by  twined  weaving.  Attention  is  especially  called  to  a  method 
of  ornamental  overlaying  among  the  Thompson  Indians  that 
has  not  a  wide  distribution.  An  ordinary  wallet  is  made  of 
twined  work  from  the  fiber  of  Apocynum  cannabinum  and 
Asclepias  speciosa.  In  the  fabric,  these  do  not  differ  from  the 
world-wide  twined  weaving,  but  in  the  ornamentation  a  strip  of 
grass  or  other  coloured  material — maybe  corn  husk — is  wrapped 
around  the  twined  work  as  it  proceeds.  Comparing  this  with 
the  Makah  wrapped  work,  the  twined  weft  takes  the  place  of 
the  strip  laid  behind  the  vertical  warps.  The  wrapping  is 
precisely  the  same,  but  in  the  Thompson  River  work  the  pat- 
terns are  quite  similar  on  both  sides,  only  the  elements  are 
oblique  on  the  outside  and  vertical  on  the  inside.  (See  Teit 
fig.  132.) 

The  weaving  of  blankets  by  basketry  processes  was  for- 
merly an  important  industry  among  them.  The  coast  Indians 
utilised  both  dog  hair  and  goat  hair  in  their  manufacture,  but 
the  Thompson  Indians  seemed  to  have  used  the  latter  only. 
Sometimes  the  wool  was  made  whiter  or  cleaned  by  mixing  a 
quantity  of  baked  white  diatomaceous  earth  with  it  and  beating 
the  whole  with  a  flat  stick.  The  manner  of  making  the  thread 
is  exactly  the  same  as  that  described  by  Dr.  Boas  for  the 
process  employed  by  the  Songish.  The  loom  and  spindle  are 
also  alike,  excepting  that  both  disk  and  shaft  of  the  latter  are 
of  wood.  The  whole  process  of  blanket-making  and  the  imple- 
ments used  are  said  to  be  those  found  among  the  lower  Fraser 
Indians.  Most  blankets  had  a  fringe  of  tassels,  6  to  9  inches 
in  length,  along  one  end.  Black  bear's  hair  made  into  threads, 
and  spun  threads  of  goat's  hair  dyed  either  yellow  with  lichens 
or  red  with  alder  bark,  were  woven  into  the  blankets  in  patterns 


342  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

similar  to  those  used  in  basketry.  The  Indians  of  Spuzzum 
continue  to  make  these  blankets  at  the  present  day. 

For  making  nets,  threads  of  the  bark  of  Apocynum  canna- 
binum  were  used.  A  wooden  netting  stick  (Teit's  fig.  134) 
served  for  making  the  meshes  of  equal  size.  The  meshes  were 
tied  with  a  square  knot. 

Eells  stated  that  the  imbricated  basketry  is  made  by  the 
Puyallups,  Twanas,  Snohomish,  Clallam,  Skagit,  Cowlitz,  Che- 
halis,  Nisqualli,  Spokan,  and  Squaxin  who  are  Salish,  as  well  as 
by  the  Yakima  and  Klikitat  Indians  of  middle  and  western 
Washington  who  are  Shahaptian.  Only  women  and  girls  are 
basketmakers ;  they  use,  in  securing  material,  the  ordinary 
root  digger.  Pieces  of  the  desired  length  and  about  the  thick- 
ness of  a  finger  are  buried  in  the  ground  to  keep  them  fresh. 
At  the  proper  time  they  are  taken  out  and  peeled  with  a  sharp 
stone  or  knife  and  hung  up  to  dry.  When  needed,  they  are 
split  into  long  strips  by  means  of  the  bone  awl.  The  pieces  of 
the  desired  width  and  thickness  throughout  are  used  for  stitch- 
ing; the  others  form  the  foundation  of  the  coil  which  in  the 
weaving  is  kept  of  uniform  thickness  by  adding  fresh  material. 
Foundations  are  also  in  narrow  strips  of  wood.  Mr.  Teit 
makes  the  important  assertion  that  the  stitches  of  the  preced- 
ing coil  are  intentionally  split  by  the  awl.  Examples  of  this 
kind  of  work  are  common  in  collections.  On  the  bottom  and 
back  as  well  as  ends  of  the  baskets  ornamental  strips  are  often 
overlaid  and  decorated  by  a  process  here  called  beading.  In 
many  examples,  strips  of  cedar  and  other  woods  are  used  as 
foundations.  The  method  of  ornamentation  employed  is 
imbrication,  described  on  page  174,  the  material  for  the  over- 
laying being  a  glossy  yellow-white  grass. 

As  soon  as  enough  is  known  about  the  geographic  distribu- 
tion of  this  imbricated  type  of  weaving,  a  better  classification 
can  be  made.  The  following  characteristics  will  suffice  as  a 
general  guide: 

i.  Foundation. — Either   a   bundle    of   splints,    somewhat 


Plate  iss.     See  page  337  67 

VARIETIES  OF  TECHNIC  PRACTICED  BY  SALISH  WOMEN 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  343 

cylindrical  in  form,  or  narrow  flat  strips  of  wood  usually  laid 
in  pairs. 

2.  Sewing. — All  done  in  splints  of  root;    in  some  baskets 
the  stitch  is  carefully  and  systematically  bifurcated  on  the 
outside,  in  others  it  is  whole. 

3.  Bottom. — Either  a  flat  spiral,  circular  or  elliptical  in  out- 
line, as  in  most  of  the  Washington  varieties  and  in  some  of  the 
farthest  removed  of  the  British  Columbia  specimens,  or  a  series 
of  straight  rows  of  sewing.     The  bottoms  of  many  of  the  bas- 
kets of  this  last  type  are  receding,  and  even  a  border  is  built  up 
outside  of  the  structure  of  the  basket.     (Compare  Plate  157 
with  Plate  163.) 

4.  General  shape. — Either  conical,  rectangular,  pyramidal, 
or  fanciful. 

5.  Decoration. — Designs   covering  the  whole  surface;    de- 
signs on  the  upper  part  of  the  surface  only ;  and  designs  around 
the  middle,  leaving  the  top  and  bottom  plain  or  separately 
figured.     In  some,  beading  is  mixed  with  the  imbricated  orna- 
ment.    It  may  not  amount  to  tribal  differences,  but  some  bas- 
kets are  decorated  in  front  with  imbrications,  and  are  plain  or 
beaded  on  the  back  and  ends.     It  is  impossible  with  the  knowl- 
edge at  present  in  hand  to  make  a  perfect  ethnic  chart  of  this 
wonderfully  varied  type  of  workmanship. 

Plate  156  is  a  covered  basket  box  in  imbricated  coiled  work, 
from  Douglas  Harbor,  British  Columbia,  now  in  the  collection 
of  Fred  Harvey,  Albuquerque,  New  Mexico.  The  foundation 
and  sewing  are  of  cedar  or  spruce  root,  and  the  imbrications 
are  in  squaw-grass  and  cedar  bark.  The  noticeable  feature  in 
this  specimen  is  the  coiled  work.  In  order  to  diminish  the 
amount  of  sewing,  the  basketmaker  has  thought  of  the  expe- 
dient used  by  the  Mescalero  Apache  Indians  of  the  south,  and 
seen  on  specimens  from  other  localities,  of  widening  the  foun- 
dation of  the  coil.  In  the  Douglas  Harbor  examples,  strips 
of  wood  take  the  place  of  two  or  more  stems  arranged  one  above 
another. 


344 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


Plate  157  represents  Thompson  River  and  Fraser  River 
coiled  baskets,  showing  both  imbrication  and  overlaying  with 
grass.  The  specimens  shown  in  this  plate  are  in  the  collection 
of  Miss  Anne  M.  Lang,  The  Dalles,  Oregon.  They  should 
be  examined  carefully  with  respect  to  the  characteristics 
of  foundation,  stitch,  shape,  design,  and  quality  mentioned 
above. 

Fig.  155  is  a  precious  old  coiled  and  imbricated  basket. 
The  bottom  is  made  up  of  fifteen  foundation  rods  laid  parallel. 
Each  one  of  these  is  overlaid  by  a  strip  of  bright  yellow  squaw- 


FIG.  155. 

COILED  AND  IMBRICATED  BASKET. 
Cat.  No.  60,235,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  J.  J.  McLean. 

grass.  Thus  prepared,  these  rods  are  sewed  together  by  coiled 
stitching,  which  is  split  or  bifurcated,  and  some  trifurcated 
in  the  operation.  Again,  while  the  stitching  is  solid  on  the 
inside,  those  in  sight  are  from  one-eighth  to  one-fourth  of  an 
inch  apart  on  the  outside,  showing  that  every  other  stitch  is 
under  the  straw.  On  the  outside  of  this  rectangular  bottom 
the  regular  coiled  work  begins  and  the  body  is  built  up,  the 
stitches  all  being  concealed  by  what  in  this  treatise  is  called 
imbricated  ornament,  or  knife  plaiting,  carefully  described 
and  illustrated  elsewhere.  In  this  example  the  ornamentation 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  345 

is  in  squaw-grass,  cherry  bark  and  cedar  bark  dyed  black.  (See 

figs.  52-55-) 

The  foundation  of  the  coiled  work  is  not  a  single  rod,  but  a 
bunch  of  splints  made  from  the  cedar  root.  Catalogue  No. 
60,235  in  the  United  States  National  Museum  was  procured 
from  Sitka  Indians,  Alaska,  by  J.  J.  McLean,  to  which  place 
it  had  doubtless  drifted  in  trade  from  the  Fraser  River  region. 
Its  length  is  8^  inches  and  height  3!  inches. 

Mr.  Hill-Tout  reports  that  for  boiling  their  food  the  N'tlaka 
pamuq  tribe  (Salishan  family),  on  the  Fraser  and  the  Thomp- 
son rivers,  always  used  basket  kettles  made  like  their  other 
basketry,  from  the  split  roots  of  the  cedar.  These  roots  are 
sometimes  red  and  black,  and  very  beautiful  patterns  are  made 
from  the  two  different  colours.  The  red  dye  was  obtained 
from  the  bark  of  the  alder  tree,  and  the  dark  stain  was  obtained 
by  soaking  the  roots*  in  black  slime  or  mud,  or  from  the  root 
of  a  fern  (Franz  Boas). 

Dr.  G.  M.  Dawson,  in  his  Notes  on  the  Shushwap  people 
of  British  Columbia,  tells  us  that  these  baskets  were  made 
from  roots  of  the  spruce,  and  Dr.  Boas,  in  his  report  on  the 
Shushwaps,  informs  us  that  the  basketry  of  the  Shushwaps 
and  N'tlaka  pamuq  was  always  made  from  the  root  of  the 
cedar.  As  the  N'tlaka  pamuq  were  preeminent  in  basket- 
making,  it  is  possible  that  the  information  gained  by  Mr.  Hill- 
Tout  may  be  accepted  as  correct,  although  the  cedar  (Thuja) 
is  not  abundant  in  the  Thompson  River  country,  f  So  skil- 
fully did  the  women  make  these  baskets  that  they  would  hold 
liquids  without  trouble.  In  preparing  food,  two  kettles  were 
used,  one  containing  water  for  washing  off  any  dirt  that  might 
adhere  to  the  heated  stones,  and  the  other  for  holding  the  food. 
In  boiling  salmon  for  eating,  the  fish  were  tied  up  in  birch  bark 
to  prevent  breaking  and  falling  to  pieces. 

*  According  to  Dr.  Boas,  the  black  dye  was  obtained  from  the  fern  root. 
It  is  possible  it  was  gotten  in  both  ways 

t  Report  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
1899,  p.  511. 


346  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

The  Washington  or  southern  imbricated  ware  is  far  more 
true  to  the  old  type  than  the  northern,  as  will  be  seen.  It  may 
be  divided  between  Salishan  and  Shahaptian.  (Plate  158.) 

The  Klikitat  or  Shahaptian  basket  (Plate  158,  fig.  2)  is 
thus  made:  The  foundation  consists  of  the  roots  of  young 
spruce  and  cedar  trees.  They  are  macerated  and  split  or  torn 
into  shreds  and  soaked  for  a  long  time.  The  materials  for  the 
ornamentation  are  thus  prepared.  Most  of  it  is  of  squaw-grass 
(Xerophyllum  tenax) .  It  grows  on  the  east  side  of  the  Cascade 
Mountains,  and  can  be  gathered  only  during  the  late  summer, 
when  the  snow  has  melted  and  the  grass  has  matured.  The 
broad  leaves  are  split  into  the  requisite  width,  and  if  they  are 
to  retain  their  natural  colour  are  soaked  in  water  only.  To  be 
dyed,  they  are  soaked  in  mud  and  charcoal  for  black,  in  a  dye 
from  willow  bark  for  brown,  and  a  long  time  in  water  for  yel- 
low. In  some  cases,  cedar  bast  is  dyed  black  instead  of  the 
grass,  but  it  is  not  so  durable ;  or  willow  bark  takes  the  place 
of  the  grass,  but  the  surface  shrivels.  With  the  three  ele- 
ments of  the  structure  around  her,  the  Klikitat  basketmaker 
takes  a  roll  of  root  splints  for  the  beginning  of  her  foundation, 
which  she  wraps  at  one  end  for  an  inch  with  sewing  splint. 
Doubling  this,  she  begins  "her  over-and-over  sewing,  splitting, 
sometimes  with  exquisite  taste  and  care,  the  wood  of  the 
stitch  underneath.  The  ornamentation  covering  more  or 
less  the  surface  of  every  Klikitat  basket,  called  imbricated 
work,  is  laid  on  in  the  process  of  manufacture.  The  woman 

(1)  catches  the  end  of  a  strip  of  grass  or  bark  under  a  stitch, 

(2)  bends  the  strip  forward  to  cover  the  stitch,  (3)  bends  it 
back  on  itself,  leaving  about  one-eighth  of  an  inch  for  the  next 
stitch  to  rest  on,   (4)  makes  her  stitch,  draws  it  home,  and 
bends  the  grass  strip  over  and  covers  it.     It  is  a  kind  of  knife 
plaiting  held  down  by  coiled  sewing,  and  is  an  invention  of 
this  region.* 

*  Mrs.  W.  M.  Molson,  Basketry  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  Portland,  Oregon, 
1896. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  347 

Plate  158,  fig.  i,  is  an  example  of  the  Salishan  or  older 
type  on  the  coast  of  Washington.  It  is  specimen  No.  2,612, 
United  States  National  Museum,  collected  by  Captain  Charles 
Wilkes. 

The  imbricated  basketry  of  Washington  is  divided  by  Mrs. 
Molson  into  two  classes,  by  districts.  The  eastern  slope  of  the 
Cascade  or  Yakima  district  belongs  to  the  arid  plateau  of 
eastern  Washington,  and  the  basket  technic  is  heavy,  staunch, 
and  of  good  workmanship,  though  it  shows  the  effect  of  cli- 
mate. But  the  western  or  Cowlitz  River  district  produced  the 
perfect  imbricated  basket,  with  more  coils  to  the  inch,  more 
stitches  in  the  same  space,  and  also  more  beautiful  designs. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  Harriet  K.  McArthur  for  copies  of 
the  old  records  relating  to  the  southern  imbricated  baskets. 
The  most  absolutely  beautiful  and  perfect  baskets  of  this  type 
were  made  on  Cowlitz  and  Lewis  rivers  in  Washington.  These 
places  are  but  a  short  distance  from  Portland,  over  in  Wash- 
ington. No  imbricated  baskets  were  ever  made  south  of  the 
Columbia;  the  finest  and  best  are  from  west  of  the  Cascade 
Mountains.  The  shaping  is  more  graceful,  being  woven  much 
finer,  and  the  designs  are  far  more  intricate.  They  rarely 
have  the  openings  around  the  top  for  lacing  strings.  Beautiful 
ones  come  from  the  Skokomish  Reservation  and  from  the 
coast,  but  they  may  have  reached  these  remote  places  through 
the  medium  of  trade. 

Immersion  in  water,  charcoal,  and  bark  dyes  is  practised. 
Cherry  bark  is  employed  much  in  British  Columbia,  and  some- 
times by  the  Klikitats,  who  occasionally  put  in  willow  bark, 
which  shrinks  and  leaves  an  ugly  stitch.  The  rare  ones  with 
colours — not  the  fine  old  brown,  yellow,  and  black,  but  old  rose 
and  purple — are  valuable  because  they  are  rare.  The  old  rose 
is  a  berry  stain,  and  the  purple  is  from  a  root ;  but  they  will 
never  rival  the  old  brown  in  beauty. 

The  typical  coiled  and  imbricated  baskets  from  west 
Washington,  therefore,  may  be  called  the  Cowlitz  type. 


348  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

According  to  Dr.  Boas,  most  of  them  are  made  on  the  Cowlitz 
River  and  north  to  Fraser  River.  He  also  bears  witness  that 
the  split  sewing  and  the  interlocking  of  stitches  are  both  prac- 
ticed. The  term  Nisqually  is  also  applied.  The  Athapascans 
seem  to  have  dwelt  originally  in  this  area,  and  it  is  just  possible 
that  they  carried  the  coiling  everywhere. 

The  so-called  Klikitat  baskets  are  now  found  on  the  Yakima 
Reservation,  in  Klikitat  and  Cowlitz  counties,  along  the 
Columbia  River,  in  the  vicinity  of  The  Dalles. 

Plate  159  represents  old  Klikitat  baskets,  coiled  and  little 
imbricated,  in  the  collection  of  Miss  Anne  M.  Lang,  The  Dalles, 
Oregon.  At  once  the  difference  will  be  seen  between  these 
conical  and  quite  aboriginal  forms  and  those  of  rectangular 
shapes  farther  north  in  the  Fraser  and  Thompson  River 
countries.  The  method  of  ornamentation  is  the  same,  but 
the  borders  are  finished  off  with  considerable  skill  and  taste  in 
braided  work.  In  the  National  Museum  are  photographs  of 
excellent  old  pieces  in  the  Harvey  collection  in  Albuquerque. 
For  the  sake  of  comparison,  Plate  160  is  inserted  to  show  later 
and  more  highly  embellished  forms. 

The  baskets  made  in  imitation  of  a  trunk  are  used  for  a 
similar  purpose,  and  not  for  berries.  The  Hudson's  Bay  people 
and  others  brought  camphor  trunks  from  the  Hawaiian  Islands, 
taken  there  from  China.  The  work  is  wonderfully  good  in  this 
as  well  as  in  others.  The  interesting  part  is  that  the  weavers 
before  this  time  had  made  baskets  with  rounded  bottoms,  and 
began,  of  course,  with  the  coil  in  the  center;  but  the  oblong 
shape  with  corners  was  another  matter,  so  a  thin  board  was 
covered  with  cloth  to  form  the  bottom,  and  on  the  edge  of  this 
the  bone  awl  was  used  to  make  perforations  to  fasten  the  first 
row  on  this  bottom.  Later  baskets  had  an  ingeniously  woven 
bottom  over  a  number  of  narrow  slats,  and  the  patient  weaver 
subsequently  mastered  an  oblong  coil. 

From  a  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs, 
Governor  Isaac  L.  Stevens,  1854,  the  following  statements 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  349 

are  taken  in  order  to  comprehend  the  migrations  of  the  tribe 
after  whom  imbricated  ware  has  been  popularly  named : 

The  tribes  of  the  Klikitat  and  Yakima  inhabit  properly  the  val- 
ley lying  between  Mounts  St.  Helena  and  Adams,  but  they  have 
spread  over  the  districts  belonging  to  other  tribes,  and  a  band  of 
them  is  now  located  as  far  south  as  Umpqua. 

The  Klikitats  and  Yakimas  in  all  essential  peculiarities  of  char- 
acter are  identical  and  their  intercourse  is  constant,  but  the  former, 
though  a  mountain  tribe,  are  more  unsettled  in  their  habits  than 
their  brethren.  The  fact  is  probably  due  in  the  first  place  to  their 
having  been  driven  from  their  homes  many  years  ago  by  the 
Cayuses,  with  whom  they  were  at  war.  They  then  became  acquaint- 
ed with  other  parts  of  the  country,  as  well  as  with  the  advantages 
derived  from  trade.  It  was  not,  however,  until  about  1839  that 
they  crossed  the  Columbia,  when  they  overran  the  Willamette 
Valley,  attracted  by  the  game  with  which  it  abounded  and  which 
they  destroyed  in  defiance  of  the  weak  and  indolent  Callapooyas. 
They  still  boast  that  they  taught  the  latter  tribe  to  ride  and  hunt. 
They  manifest  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  trading. 

Under  the  term  Walla  Walla  (page  223  of  Stevens'  report) 
are  embraced  a  number  of  bands,  living  usually  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Columbia  and  on  the  Snake  River,  to  a  little  east  of 
the  Palouse. 

The  Tai-tin-a-pam,  a  band  of  the  Klikitats  already  men- 
tioned, living  near  the  head  of  the  Cowlitz,  were  called  by  their 
eastern  brethren  wild  or  wood  Indians. 

From  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  for 
1858  (page  225),  Puget  Sound  Agency,  T.  Simmon,  agent,  is 
quoted : 

There  is  a  portion  of  the  Indians  of  my  district  whose  homes 
are  high  up  on  the  river,  principally  on  the  Nisqually,  Puyallup, 
and  Snoqualmie.  They  are  nearly  related  to  the  Yakimas  and 
Klikitats  by  blood,  and  are  sometimes  called  Klikitats. 

R.  S.  Landsdale,  agent,  White  Salmon  Agency  (page  275), 
writes: 


350  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Many  of  the  Klikitats  were  removed  during  the  late  war  from 
their  former  homes,  west  of  the  Cascade  Mountains,  to  this  agency. 

The  home  of  the  Klikitat  Indians,  says  Mrs.  Molson,*  was 
along  the  waters  of  the  Columbia  and  its  tributaries,  from  the 
Cascade  Mountains  on  the  west  to  the  Bitter  Root  Range  on 
the  east,  and  from  46  degrees  and  44  minutes  North  to  what 
is  now  eastern  Washington  and  northern  Idaho.  They  were 
not  only  rovers  and  marauders,  but  they  went  on  annual  expe- 
ditions to  trade,  carrying  dried  buffalo  meat  and  robes,  and 
wild  hemp,  dried  and  twisted,  to  exchange  for  dried  salmon 
and  dentalia.  They  held  the  gateway  between  the  East  and 
the  West,  for  the  river  was  the  only  route  of  communication. 
South  of  the  Columbia,  along  the  ocean,  is  an  old  path  known 
as  the  "Klikitat  trail."  They  journeyed  south  by  this  route, 
and  returned  north  by  the  Klamath  trail  on  the  eastern  side 
of  the  Cascades. 

Plate  161  is  a  typical  coiled  and  imbricated  berry  basket 
of  the  Klikitat  Indians,  from  the  collection  of  Mrs.  R.  S. 
Shackelford,  from  whom  the  following  information  is  received : 
The  inside  walls,  both  foundation  and  sewing,  are  from  splints 
of  the  root  of  the  giant  cedar  (Thuja  plicatd),  collected  on  the 
sides  of  Mount  Hood.  The  ornamentation  is  the  imbricated 
work  described  in  detail  on  page  346,  the  materials  being  of 
the  white  yi  or  squaw-grass.  Cedar  and  cherry  bark  are  also 
used,  and  for  colour  the  yellow  dye  is  procured  from  the 
Oregon  grape  (Berberis  nervosa),  the  brown  dye  from  alder 
bark,  and  the  black  from  acorns  soaked  in  mud.  The  meaning 
of  the  artistic  terraced  design  is  not  known.  Six  months  were 
consumed  in  making  it.  Catalogue  No.  207,756,  United 
States  National  Museum.  The  following  story  was  gathered 
from  a  basketmaker  by  Mrs.  Shackelford: 

The  Spirit  told  the  first  weaver  to  make  a  basket  (tooksi). 
So  she  repaired  to  the  forest  and  pondered  over  her  mission.  Gath- 

*  Basketry  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  Portland,  Oregon,  1896. 


Plate  161.     See  page  350 

IMBRICATED  BASKET  WITH  OPEN  BORDER,   KLIKITAT  INDIANS, 
WASHINGTON 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY 


351 


ering  the  plant  yi,  squaw-grass,  elk-grass,  pine-grass,  and  the  red 
cedar  roots,  noo  wi  ash  (Thuja  plicatd),  she  began  to  weave,  and 
after  many  toilsome  days  a  basket  was  produced.  She  carried  it 
to  the  lake  and  dipped  it  full  of  water,  .but  it  leaked,  and  the  Spirit 
said  to  her:  "It  will  not  do.  Weave  again  a  tight  basket  with  a 
pattern  on  it."  She  sat  by  the  water-side,  and  as  she  looked  into 
the  clear  depths  of  the  lake  the  pattern  (chato  timus)  was  revealed 
to  her  in  the  refracted  lines,  and  with  new  courage  she,  repaired 
to  the  depths  of  the  forest  and  worked  until  she  wrought  a  basket 


FIG.  156. 

IMBRICATED  BASKET.   ' 
Yakima  Indians,  Washington. 
After  W.  H.  Holmes. 


on  which  the  ripples  of  the  lake  were  shown.  Other  women  have 
learned  the  pattern  all  down  the  ages,  but  only  very  few  are  now 
left  who  can  weave  a  faultless  basket  and  a  perfect  imitation  of 
chato  timus. 

The  locality  where  the  story  was  learned  is  Lummi  Island, 
Bellingham  Bay,  Washington.  The  pattern  referred  to  is 
similar  to  that  shown  in  fig.  289  of  the  Sixth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology. 

Fig.  156  represents  a  fine  old  piece  of  Yakima  coiled  and 
imbricated  basket,  Catalogue  No.  23,872  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  collected  by  James  H.  Wilbur.  The  foun- 


352 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


dation  and  sewing  are  in  split  root,  probably  cedar.  The  sew- 
ing is  entirely  overlaid  and  concealed  by  strips  of  squaw-grass 
laid  on  in  the  manner  explained  on  page  346.  The  border  is 
especially  interesting,  connected  structurally  with  examples 
from  California  and  Peru  (see  Plate  248).  It  is  in  open  coiled 
work,  the  foundation  being  wrapped,  bent  in  a  regular  sinuous 
pattern,  and  sewed  down  here  and  there.  The  design,  accord- 
ing to  Mrs.  Judge  Burke, 
represents  a  flock  of  geese 
migrating.  Its  height  is  7^ 
inches.  (See  fig.  159  and 
Plate  35.) 

Fig.  157,  Catalogue  No. 
2,137,  is  an  °ld  example  of 
imbricated  basketry  from 
Washington,  collected  by  Dr. 
J.  L.  Fox,  United  States 
Navy,  of  the  Wilkes  Explor- 
ing Expedition.  Such  work 
is  now  generally  called 
Klikitat,  and  the  Indians 

of  that  stock  are  expert  in  the  use  of  it;  but  the  exploring 
expedition  did  not  come  in  contact  with  tribes  so  far  in  the 
interior.  The  Salish  Indians  on  Puget  Sound  make  the  same 
type  of  work,  and  it  is  known  that  the  very  best  come  from 
the  Cowlitz  country,  so  that  this  is  probably  a  very  old  piece 
of  Cowlitz  basketry  in  this  kind  of  weaving.  The  whole  sur- 
face is  covered  with  imbrication,  or  knife  plaiting,  explained 
on  page  346  and  illustrated  in  figs.  52-54. 

Catalogue  No.  2,614,  United  States  National  Museum, 
shown  in  Plate  45,  is  an  imbricated  basket  made  by  an  Indian 
of  Salishan  family,  in  Washington.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest 
specimens  in  the  National  Museum,  having  been  brought 
home  by  Captain  Charles  Wilkes  more  than  sixty  years  ago. 
The  material  of  the  foundation  and  sewing  is  of  cedar  root. 


FIG.  157. 
IMBRICATED  BASKET. 

Cowlitz   Indians. 
Collected  by  Dr.  J.  L.  Fox,  U.  S.  Navy. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  353 

The  surface  is  covered  entirely  with  imbricated  ornamenta- 
tion, the  body  colour  being  produced  by  strips  of  squaw-grass. 
The  figures  are  in  cedar  bark  in  natural  colour  and  dyed  black 
by  means  of  charcoal  and  mud.  The  golden  colour  in  the  straw 
filaments  is  produced  by  longer  immersion  in  water.  The 
most  interesting  feature  in  this  basket  is  the  bottom,  which  is 


PIG.  is8. 

TWILLED  BASKETWORK 

Clallam  Indians,  Washington. 

Collected  by  J.  G.  Swan. 

formed  upon  a  strip  of  wood  three-fourths  of  an  inch  wide  and 
six  inches  in  length.  It  is  very  closely  wrapped  or  served 
with  a  splint  of  root.  Upon  the  margin  of  this  the  coiled 
work  begins,  one  round  being  made  in  plain  stitches.  After- 
ward the  patterns  are  attached  immediately  to  this  and 
extend  outward  to  a  black  line  on  the  margin,  the  body  of  the 


354  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

basket  being  completely  covered  with  other  figures,  the  ends 
different  from  the  sides.  The  border  is  neatly  finished  off  in 
false  braid.  There  are  about  eight  rows  of  coiled  work  and 
from  twelve  to  sixteen  stitches  to  the  inch.  On  the  outside 
the  stitches  are  regularly  split  or  furcated.  Length,  8  inches ; 
depth,  4^  inches. 

Fig.  158  represents  a  specimen  of  twilled  work  by  the 
Clallam  Indians,  and  should  be  compared  with  Quilleute  exam- 
ple, Plate  152.  It  is  made  of  flat  splints  of  white  wood,  resem- 
bling birch.  The  bottom  was  woven  first,  and  all  of  the  splints 
by  being  bent  upward  became  the  warp  of  the  sides.  Twilled 
effect  is  produced  by  passing  each  weft  splint  over  two  and 
under  two  warp  splints.  The  fastening  off  of  the  upper  border 
is  done  by  bending  down  the  warp  splints  and  holding  them 
in  place  by  a  whipping  of  the  same  material.  The  scallop  on 
the  upper  border  is  formed  by  looping  the  middle  of  two  splints 
under  the  rim,  twisting  both  pairs  of  ends  into  a  twine,  passing 
one  twine  through  the  other,  and  doubling  down  to  repeat 
the  process  until  the  whole  is  finished. 

Illustrations  of  this  method  of  making  twilled  work  are 
shown  in  figs.  94-96,  but,  as  will  be  seen,  innumerable  pleas- 
ing effects  are  produced  by  varying  the  colour,  the  number,  the 
width,  and  the  direction  of  the  splints  that  are  overlapped 
in  the  weaving.  Catalogue  No.  23,509,  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  procured  in  Washington  by  James  G. 
Swan.  It  is  fifteen  inches  in  height. 

Myron  Eells,  long  a  resident  among  the  Sound  tribes  of 
Salish,  has  collected  for  the  United  States  National  Museum 
at  different  times  many  specimens  of  their  basketry.  It 
was  he  that  first  noticed  the  great  diversity  that  exists  in  such 
small  tribes  as  the  Twana,  or  Towanhoo.  They  use  in  their 
work  a  knife  for  splitting  material,  and  a  common  awl,  for- 
merly of  bone,  in  sewing  their  coiled  ware.  He  has  seen  a 
woman  using  a  small  bone  for  pressing  home  her  weft.  This 
is  rare,  for  the  fingers  are  usually  employed  for  this  purpose. 


Plate  163.     See  page  357 

TWINED  AND  IMBRICATED  WORK,  QUINAIELT  AND  THOMPSON   RIVER 
SHOWING  DETAIL 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


ass 


Fig.  159  is  a  water-tight  basket  for  cooking,  marked  Clal- 
lam.  The  foundation  is  the  single  flat  strip  type.  Attention 
is  called  to  the  ornamental  effect  produced  in  this  work  by  the 
splitting  of  the  under  stitch  by  the  one  above  it.  The  note- 
worthy feature  of  this  type  of  basket,  however,  is  in  the  oc- 
casional overlaying  of  a  filament  of  squaw-grass  or  other  mate- 
rial, which  seems  to  be  the  first  step  toward  imbrication.  The 


FIG.  159. 

WATER-TIGHT  BASKET. 

Clallam  Indians,  Washington. 

Collected  by  J.G.  Swan. 


grass  lies  over  two  stitches  and  is  caught  under  the  next  stitch, 
passing  under  and  over  as  in  "beading."  In  other  examples 
the  straw  is  covered  and  revealed  in  the  alternate  stitches. 
It  can  be  seen  that  a  great  variety  of  effects  is  possible  in  this 
manipulation. 

A  square  inch  from  the  surface  of  this  specimen  enlarged 
(fig.  1 60)  will  show  more  clearly  what  has  been  hitherto 
described — the  interlocking  stitches,  the  furcation  of  the 
stitches,  and  the  overlaying  with  ornamental  filaments. 

Catalogue    No.    23,512,    in   the   United   States    National 


356 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


Museum,  was  procured  in  Washington  State  by  James  G. 
Swan. 

Charles  Willoughby,  who  was  agent  among  the  Quinaielt 
or  Quinault  Indians  in  western  Washington,  makes  the  fol- 
lowing report  of  their  basketry : 

"  They  have  the  cedar  bark  for  the  foundation  of  basketry, 
strips  of  pine  root  for  rigid  work,  and  hemp,  rushes,  and  grass 
for  the  weft  and  ornamentation.  The  grass  used  in  strength- 
ening the  borders  of  mats,  rain  cloaks,  etc.,  grows  on  flat 

places.  It  is  prepared  like  flax 
by  soaking  in  water  until  the 
outer  portion  decays,  when  it 
is  beaten  with  sticks  until  only 
the  fiber  remains.  The  yellow 
fiber  of  squaw-grass  used  by 
Indians  for  the  outside  of  bas- 
kets is  a  great  source  of  traffic, 
as  it  is  only  found  in  this  local- 
ity. The  basket  grass  is  gath- 
ered carefully,  one  blade  at  a 
time,  to  secure  that  part  of  the 
stalk  that  reaches  about  six 
inches  under  the  ground  before  it  meets  the  root.  To 
prepare  the  grass  for  drying,  it  is  woven  together  at  the 
ends  with  fibers  of  cedar  bark.  It  is  then  spread  upon 
the  ground  or  roofs  in  the  sun.  When  to  be  used,  it  is 
moistened  with  water  and  split  with  two  small  knife  blades 
set  in  a  stick  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  strips  of 
the  same  width,  the  smaller  portion  being  thrown  away.  The 
grass  is  kept  moist  with  water  while  being  made  into  baskets. 
The  coloured  grasses  are  now  prepared  by  using  aniline  dyes. 
This  was  formerly  done  by  steeping  the  roots  of  plants  that 
yielded  a  yellow  colouring.  A  red  dye  was  made  from  the 
bark  of  alder,  and  a  paint  was  made  of  blue  clay."  * 

*  Smithsonian  Report,  1886,  Pt.  I,  pp.  267-282. 


FIG.  1 60 
DETAIL  OP  FIG.  159. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  357 

Plate  162  shows  a  number  of  Quinaielt  baskets  in  twined 
and  overlaid  weave,  in  the  collection  of  Miss  Anne  M.  Lang. 

Plate  163,  top  figure,  is  a  wallet  made  from  grass  stems 
by  the  Quinaielt  Indians.  It  is  worthy  of  special  study, 
because  the  warp  is  horizontal  and  the  weft  vertical.  Open- 
work figures  are  produced  on  the  surface  in  a  series  of  chev- 
roned  patterns  by  an  ingenious  but  very  simple  process.  At 
the  point  where  the  open  effect  is  to  be  produced,  the  two 
strands  constituting  the  twine  do  not  make  a  half-turn,  but 
pass  above  and  below  the  warp,  as  in  ordinary  plain  weav- 
ing, across  one  warp  strand.  In  the  next  round  the  adjoin- 
ing pair  are  similarly  treated,  and  thus  figures  are  produced. 
At  the  upper  and  lower  margin  two  rows  of  horizontal  twined 
weaving  fasten  off  the  ends,  which  are  braided  down.  On 
the  sides  the  warp  strands  are  sewed  into  and  concealed  in  a 
coarse  braid  of  rushes.  Width,  1 8£  inches;  height,  14  inches. 

Catalogue  No.  151,452,  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  was  collected  in  Washington  State  by  Dr.  Franz 
Boas. 

Plate  163,  bottom  figure,  is  a  Thompson  River  basket 
in  the  collection  of  J.  W.  Benham.  It  is  introduced  here  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  how  the  Indian  woman's  mind  strug- 
gled with  the  problem  of  starting  the  bottom  of  a  rectangular 
coiled  basket.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Thompson  River 
Indians  do  not  understand  this  process,  but  many  old  Thomp- 
sons have  coiled  bottoms,  and  this  technic  is  older  than  the 
other.  The  work  begins  by  wrapping  a  foundation  of  splints 
with  the  split  root  of  spruce  or  cedar  for  six  or  more  inches. 
This  is  then  doubled  upon  itself,  and  the  sewing  begins  and 
proceeds  backward  and  forward,  as  in  plowing,  until  fifteen 
rows  are  made;  the  coiling  then  actually  starts,  the  work 
extending  not  only  along  the  sides,  but  across  the  ends,  making 
a  parallelogram,  which  is  extended  for  ten  rows  farther  out- 
ward, at  which  place  the  additional  ornament  begins.  So 
far  it  is  plain  coiled  work  with  split  stitches;  afterward  it 


358  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

becomes  a  mixture  of  plain  coiled  work  with  upright  bands 
of  imbrication.  Its  height  is  13  inches,  and  its  width  at 
bottom  is  9^  inches. 

The  twined  baskets  of  Washington,  with  little  animals 
around  the  margin,  belong  to  the  Skokomish  and  other  Salishan 
tribes  about  Puget  Sound.  When  the  tails  turn  up,  the  figures 
are  dogs  or  wolves;  when  they  turn  down,  they  are  horses. 
Especial  attention  has  been  called  to  the  varied  and  tasteful 
effects  produced  by  the  use  of  the  rectangular  element. 

Plate  164  represents  two  carrying  wallets  of  the  Skokomish 
Indians  living  in  Washington.  The  examples  shown  are  done 
in  the  style  of  weaving  called  here  "wrapped  twine"  (figs. 
21  and  22). 

Plate  165  shows  specimens  of  carrying  baskets  made  by 
Salish  tribes  in  Washington ;  the  one  in  the  center  is  Tillamuk, 
Catalogue  No.  151,149  in  the  United  States  National  Museum, 
collected  by  Dr.  Franz  Boas.  The  others,  Nos.  2,709  and 
23,511,  are  very  old  specimens  in  the  National  Museum  collec- 
tion, and  are  credited  to  the  Clallams.  The  upper  one  on 
the  plate  was  brought  by  the  Wilkes  Exploring  Expedition, 
secured  more  than  sixty  years  ago.  All  of  these  are  in  plain, 
twined  weaving  with  splint  of  root,  probably  spruce,  made 
browner  by  soaking  in  mud.  The  ornamentation  is  false 
embroidery  in  squaw-grass.  The  three  methods  of  forming 
the  border  are  noteworthy.  In  the  upper  specimen,  stout 
cable  is  formed  by  "sewing"  a  small  bundle  of  root  splints 
with  the  same  material.  This  is  sewed  here  and  there  to  the 
upper  margin  of  the  wallet.  The  other  figures  show  the  mar- 
gin finished  by  braiding  down ;  the  loops  of  root  were  twisted 
in  subsequently.  The  animals  on  the  margin  are  horses. 

The  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  23,511,  which  is  the  lower 
one  on  the  plate,  was  collected  in  Washington  by  James  G. 
Swan. 

Plate  1 66,  upper  figure,  is  an  open  twined  wallet  of  the 
Tillamuk  Indians,  Salishan  family,  the  remnant  of  which  is 


Plate  165.     See  page  358 

TWINED  WALLETS  OF  CLALLAM  AND  TILLAMUK  SALISH, 
WASHINGTON 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Mxiseum 


Plate  1 6  6 .     See  page  358 

OPENWORK  TWINED  WALLETS,  CHINOOK  AND  TILLAMUK, 
WASHINGTON 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  359 

living  at  Grande  Ronde  Agency,  Oregon.  The  bottom  of 
this  basket  is  rather  ingenious.  The  warp  splints  of  the  sides 
pass  across  the  bottom  also,  and  are  held  together  there  by 
courses  of  twined  weaving.  At  the  edges  of  the  end  portions 
of  the  bottom  the  splints  of  the  weft  become  the  warp  for  the 
body.  At  the  upper  border  two  rows  of  squaw-grass  are  beaded 
in.  The  braided  border  around  the  top  is  formed  by  the  ends 
of  the  warp  splints  plaited  together  in  a  double  row,  additional 
material  being  used  if  necessary. 

The  lower  figure  is  an  open  wallet  of  the  Chinook  Indians, 
Chinookan  family,  occupying  formerly  both  sides  of  the 
Columbia  River  from  the  mouth  to  the  Dalles,  a  distance  of 
200  miles.  According  to  Lewis  and  Clark,  most  of  their  vil- 
lages were  on  the  northern  bank.  To  this  family  also  belong 
the  Clatsops  and  Wascos,  to  be  mentioned  later.  The  wallet 
illustrated  in  the  plate  is  made  of  root  in  twined  weaving  with 
crossed  warp.  The  bottom,  or  foundation,  is  a  rectangular 
structure,  about  four  inches  square,  made  of  double  splints 
of  root  securely  lashed  together.  From  this  central  portion 
the  splints  spread  out  and  the  twined  weaving  begins.  Addi- 
tional warp  elements  are  added  from  time  to  time  as  the  struc- 
ture widens.  A  coarse  form  of  ornamentation  is  produced 
by  overlaying  some  of  the  warp  elements  with  squaw-grass. 
The  fastening  off  of  the  upper  border  is  peculiar,  and  on  the 
outside  imitates  precisely  a  three-ply  braid,  but  on  the  inside 
the  structure  is  at  once  revealed.  A  strip  of  root  is  laid  along 
the  top  of  the  warp  elements,  and  these  are  brought  over  in 
button -hole  stitch  and  tucked  behind  the  strip,  and  then  cut 
off,  making  a  very  rough  appearance.  It  will  be  noticed  that 
in  the  weaving  of  this  wallet  the  half -turns  of  the  twine  do  not 
go  around  the  crossings  of  the  warp  elements,  but  just  below, 
so  as  to  include  each  warp  separately.  On  the  outside  of  the 
warp  splints  here  and  there  a  strip  of  grass  is  regularly  overlaid. 

Catalogue  Nos.  151,447  and  151,448  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum  were  collected  by  Dr.  Franz  Boas. 


36° 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


The  Nez  Perce"  Indians  of  the  Shahaptian  family,  prior  to 
the  advent  of  the  whites  on  the  Pacific  coast,  made  heavy  and 
beautiful  blankets  of  the  wool  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  sheep 
and  of  the  hair  of  animals  killed  in  the  chase,  dyed  in  different 
colours.  The  patterns  are  all  geometric,  and  are,  in  fact,  woven 

mosaics,  each  figure 
being  inserted  sepa- 
rately by  twisting 
two  woof  threads 
backward  and  for- 
ward around  the 
warp  strands . 
Scarcely  ever  does 
the  twine  extend 
in  stripes  all  the 
way  across  the 
blanket  in  a  direct 
line. 

The  same  In- 
dians at  present 
weave  bags  from 
the  bast  of  the  In- 
dian hemp  (Apocy- 
num  cannabinum) 
and  from  grass 
stems  shredded.  The 
figures  are  produced 
by  overlaying  the 
regular  warp  strands  with  corn  husks  or  coloured  grass  in  false 
embroidery.  In  some  examples  (see  fig.  161),  the  entire 
surface  is  covered  with  geometric  figures;  in  others  they 
are  only  partially  covered.  The  Nez  Perec's  are  in  the  same 
family  as  the  Klikitat  and  Yakima,  but  they  make  no  imbri- 
cated baskets. 

Fig.  161  is  a  twined  wallet  of  the  Nez  Perces.     The  body 


FIG.  161. 

TWINED  WALLET. 
Nez  Perc£  Indians,  Idaho. 


Plate  167.     See  page  361  i  a 

WOMEN'S  HATS  IN  TWINED  BASKETRY.  NEZ  PERCE               3  4 

AND  MODOC  COMPARED  6  7 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  361 

weaving,  both  warp  and  weft,  is  of  Indian  hemp.  In  the  proc- 
ess of  manufacture  a  sufficient  number  of  warp  strands  were 
joined  together  in  the  middle  by  a  row  of  twined  weaving  and 
probably  suspended,  the  ends  hanging  down.  The  weaver 
filled  this  warp  with  the  ordinary  twisted  work,  proceeding 
from  the  bottom  to  the  border.  The  ornamentation,  in  corn 
husk  or  other  weak  material,  in  the  natural  colour  or  dyed,  is 
laid  on  externally  by  what  is  here  called  false  embroidery. 
The  process  was  fully  described  and  illustrated  in  speaking  of 
Tlinkit  weaving  (fig.  139,  page  323).  This  specimen  should 
be  compared  with  the  making  of  soft 
wallets  among  the  Fraser  River 
tribes,  illustrated  in  Teith's  mono- 
graph, where  the  corn  husk,  instead 
of  being  wrapped  merely  around  the 
outer  element  of  the  twine,  passes 
around  both  strands,  and  the  figure 
appears  on  the  inside  of  the  recep- 
tacle, which  is  not  true  of  the  Nez 
Perc6  example. 

FIG.  162. 

Fig.  162  will  show  a  square  inch         DETAIL  OF  FIG.  161. 
of  this  wallet,  the  special  feature  of 

which  is  that  while  the  rows  in  plain  twining  seem  to   be 
vertical,  they  are  inclined  to  the  right  in  the  false  embroidery. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  9,026  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Idaho  by  Dr.  Storrer. 

Plate  167  is  an  interesting  collection  of  women's  hats. 
Figs,  i  and  2  are  Modoc  twined  baskets  from  the  Benjamin 
collection,  Catalogue  Nos.  204,258  and  204,259;  height,  5$ 
inches.  The  foundation  is  of  rush.  The  weaving  is  in  the 
same  material,  the  designs  being  formed  by  regular  overlaying 
in  step  patterns,  formed  by  piling  rhomboid  figures  upon  one 
another.  Strips  of  bird  quill  are  introduced  into  these 
patterns,  having  been  dyed  a  bright  yellow  which  gives  life 
to  the  figures.  It  may  be  repeated  that  both  of  these  sped- 


362  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

mens  are  in  plain  twined  weaving  overlaid.  All  the  other 
figures  on  the  plate  are  in  wrapped  twined  weaving,  as  among 
the  Makahs  and  other  tribes  of  the  Fraser-Columbia  region. 

Figs.  3  and  4  are  women's  hats  of  the  Nez  Perc6  and  Walla 
Walla  Indians,  Shahaptian  family,  Washington,  Catalogue 
Nos.  23,857  and  129,680.  The  foundation  is  of  hemp.  The 
weft  consists  of  strands  of  hemp  on  the  inside  wrapped  around 
with  a  filament  of  squaw-grass.  The  process  of  this  weaving  is 
explained  in  figs.  21  and  22.  Catalogue  No.  23,857,  collected 
by  J.  B.  Monteith,  height  5  inches;  129,680,  collected  by  Mrs. 
Anna  McBean,  height  5!  inches. 

Fig.  5,  Catalogue  No.  9,040,  United  States  National 
Museum,  is  a  woman's  hat,  called  a  wedding  hat,  and  assigned 
to  the  Cascade  Indians.  It  is  doubtless  Shahaptian.  In  every 
respect  it  is  made  like  the  Nez  Perc6  examples  described,  being 
in  wrapped  twined  weaving  similar  to  that  of  the  Makah 
Indians.  Height,  6£  inches ;  collected  by  Dr.  James  T.  Ghiselin. 

Figs.  6  and  7,  5  inches  in  height,  are  women's  hats  of  the 
Nez  Perc6  Indians,  Shahaptian  family,  collected  by  F.  W. 
Clark,  and  No.  23,587,  5  inches  in  height,  collected  by  J.  B. 
Monteith. 

The  Cayuse  (Waiilatpuan)  and  Umatilla  (Shahaptian) 
make  soft  baskets  in  twined  weaving.  They  are  horse  Indians 
and  use  their  wallets  for  saddle  bags.  The  materials  are 
rushes,  wild  hemp,  corn  husks,  and  worsted.  The  bottoms 
and  undecorated  portions  are  plain  twined  work.  In  the 
figured  parts  the  husks,  split  into  narrow  strips,  are  admin- 
istered in  four  ways — by  overlaying,  not  showing  on  the  inside ; 
by  overlaying  and  twining  so  as  to  show  on  the  inside;  by 
false  embroidery,  wrapped  about  the  weft  twine  elements  on 
the  outside ;  and  by  frapping  the  twined  weft  as  in  the  Thomp- 
son River  work  (Mrs.  McArthur). 

The  soft  wallets  illustrated  in  Plate  168,  often  called  "  Sally 
bags,"  were  made  by  Wasco  Indians,  who  belong  to  the 
Chinookan  family.  At  present  they  are  on  the  Warm  Springs 


Plate  1 68.     See  page  362 

WASCO  TWINED  WALLETS.    DESIGNS  IN  WRAPPED  WEAVING 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  363 

Reservation  in  Oregon  and  the  Yakima  Reservation  in  Wash- 
ington. The  wallet  in  the  middle  of  the  plate,  No.  9,041,  was 
presented  to  the  United  States  National  Museum  by  Dr.  James 
T.  Ghiselin,  in  1869;  the  others  were  collected  by  Mrs.  R.  S. 
Shackelford  and  Miss  E.  T.  Houtz.  They  are  all  made  in  plain 
twined  weaving  over  warp  of  rushes,  the  patterns  being  effected 
by  overlaying  the  twine  of  hemp  with  strips  of  fiber  that  in 
structure  resemble  corn  husks.  On  the  newer  specimens  the 
designs  are  clearly  shown,  representing  man  (tillacum),  elk 
(mowitch),  sturgeon  (pish),  duck  (culla-culla).  By  observing 
the  men's  faces  in  the  newer  specimens  it  will  be  easy  to  detect 
the  idealised  faces  on  the  fine  old  wallet  in  the  middle. 

Prof.  O.  M.  Dalton  figures*  an  old  Wasco  basket  wallet, 
with  the  image  of  a  man  in  knee-breeches  on  the  surface.  In 
the  National  Museum  are  a  number  of  new  wallets  bearing 
this  same  figure,  but  the  Dalton  specimens  show  that  it  has 
been  a  motive  in  Wasco  weaving  for  a  long  period. 

Plate  169  represents  twined  wallets  of  the  Wasco  Indians, 
Oregon,  in  the  Fred  Harvey  collection.  The  foundations  are 
in  native  hemp  in  plain-twined  weaving.  On  the  body  of  the 
wallets,  birds,  beasts,  and  men  are  wrought  in  grass  or  husks 
of  corn  in  corners. 

Clatsops  make  flat  mats  and  wallets  of  cattail  rush.  The 
latter,  with  strap  of  grass  and  wool  across  the  shoulders,  are 
excellent  for  carrying  fish.  They  also  construct  a  sack  in  open 
twined  work  in  roots.  The  fine  twined  small  baskets  in  three 
colours  are  equal  to  any  in  Oregon  (Mrs.  Me  Arthur). 

THE  CALIFORNIA-OREGON  REGION 

The  human  hand  is  so  beautifully  formed,  it  has  so  fine  a  sensi- 
bility, that  sensibility  governs  its  motions  so  correctly,  every  effort 
of  the  will  is  answered  so  instantly,  as  if  the  hand  were  the  seat  of 
that  will. — Sir  CHARLES  BELL. 

The  California-Oregon  basketry  region  has  only  one  definite 
boundary — the  hard  coast  of  the  Pacific ;  on  other  sides  there 

*Man  (London),  I,  note  17. 


364  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

is  no  sharp  ethnic  limit.  North,  East,  and  South,  it  is  full  of 
turnstiles  that  move  in  one  direction  only.  Tribes  from  far 
away  pushed  through  them  into  this  region,  but  if  they  had 
desired  to  turn  their  backs  on  abundant  game,  fish,  and  vegetal 
foods,  they  would  have  been  prevented  by  the  columns  in  the 
rear. 

The  ancient  basketmakers  of  this  area  knew  nearly  every 
type  and  technical  process  of  the  art,  both  in  weaving  and 
coiling.  They  added  at  least  one  new  technical  process,  the 
Tee  weave.  In  ornamentation,  imbrication  is  wanting  as  well 
as  false  embroidery,  but  there  is  quite  enough  else  to  make  up 
the  deficiency.  Within  the  California-Oregon  region  there 
are  subregions,  and  the  following  list  of  linguistic  families  will 
help  to  unravel  the  tangle : 

NORTHERN  GROUP 

Athapascan  family :  Hupa,  lower  Trinity  River,  and  Wailaki, 
western  slopes  of  the  Shasta  Mountains. 

Chimarikan  family :     On  Trinity  River. 

Copehan  family:  Wintun  under  many  names,  western  drain- 
age Sacramento  River. 

Kalapooian  family:     The  Willamette  Plains,  western  Oregon. 

Kulanapan  family:  Porno,  under  many  names,  in  Mendocino 
and  Lake  counties. 

Kusan  family:     Coos  River  and  Bay,  western  Oregon. 

Lutuamian  family:  Klamath  and  Modoc,  Upper  Klamath 
River  or  Klamath  Lake. 

Palaihnihan  family:  Pit  Rivers;  on  Pit  River  to  eastern 
boundary  of  the  State. 

Pujunan  family:  Concow  (Konkau),  Maidu,  Nockum  (Na- 
kum),  western  drainage  of  the  Sacramento  River,  south  of 
Palaihnihan. 

Quoratean  family:     Ehnek,  Karok,  middle  Klamath  River. 

Sastean  family:     Shastas;   middle  northern  boundary  of  State. 

Takilman  family:     Lower  Rogue  River,  Oregon. 

Weitspekan  family:     Yurok,  weitspek,  Lower   Klamath  River. 

Wishoskan  family :     Wishosk,  on  Eel  River  and  Humboldt  Bay. 

Yanan  family:     Nozis,  north  of  Pujunan. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  365 

Yukian  family:  Ashochimi,  Chumaya,  Napa,  Tatu  or  Potter 
Valley,  Yuki  or  Round  Valley,  in  Potter  and  Round  valleys.* 

SOUTHERN  GROUP 

Chumashan  family:  Santa  Barbara,  Santa  Inez,  San  Luis 
Obispo,  in  Santa  Barbara  County. 

Costanoan  family:  Mutsun;  Pacific  slope,  west  and  south  of 
San  Francisco. 

Esselenian  family:  Soledad,  Eslen,  and  other  missions  close 
by  on  Monterey  Bay. 

Mariposan  family:  Yokut  and  many  smaller  tribes,  Fresno 
River.  (See  Powell,  f) 

Moquelumnan  family:  Mu-wa  and  Olamentke  divisions.  (See 
Powell,  t) 

Salinan  family:     San  Antonio,  San  Miguel,  Monterey  County. 

Shoshonean  family:  Chemehuevi,  Panamint  and  others  in- 
truded along  the  eastern  border,  more  and  more,  from  north  to 
south,  reaching  the  Pacific  Ocean  at  the  Santa  Barbara  Islands. 

Yuman  family:  including  Cochimi,  Cocopas,  Cuchan,  Die- 
guefios,  Havasupai,  Maricopa,  Mohave,  Waicuru,  Walapai,  and 
several  missions,  f 

The  locations  of  the  linguistic  families  in  California 
are  shown  on  the  map  (see  fig.  163).  A  glance  indicates 
how,  in  a  general  way,  the  State  is  divided,  into  north- 
ern and  southern  portions  by  a  line  running  from  San 
Francisco  Bay  to  the  angle  of  Nevada,  and  also  in 
the  same  manner  the  subdivision  of  the  northern  por- 
tion of  the  State  into  three  vertical  sections.  A  little 
difference  exists  between  the  nomenclature  of  this  map  and 
that  of  Powell.  For  instance,  the  Wintun  are  Copehan; 
the  Maidu  are  Pujunan ;  the  Yokut  on  this  map  correspond  to 
the  Powell  Mariposan.  With  these  slight  amendments  the 
map  will  be  easily  understood  and  of  great  importance  in  locat- 

*  For  classification  of  these  northern  tribes  on  the  concept  of  basketry, 
consult  Roland  B.  Dixon,  Basketry  Designs  of  the  Indians  of  Northern  Cali- 
fornia. Bulletin  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  XVII,  pp. 
1-32. 

t  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1891 ,  p.  1-142. 


366 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


LEGEND 

Hartfanuttrn  vtiw*  7/JM 
orMeUdu  Type. 


FIG.  163. 

LINGUISTIC  MAP  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
After  Dixon  and  Kroeber. 


ing  California  basketry.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that,  while 
the  Powell  map  was  made  long  ago  from  vocabularies  only,  the 
Dixon-Kroeber  map  is  based  on  grammar,  and  yet  the  agree- 
ments are  nearly  complete.  Especial  attention  is  called  to  the 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  367 

vast  area  occupied  by  the  intruding  Shoshonean  family  from 
the  interior  basin.* 

The  western  division  of  the  north  California  region,  includ- 
ing the  coast  of  Oregon  as  well,  may  be  divided  into  three  loca- 
tions, each  containing  different  tribes.  The  most  northerly 
would  be  Athapascan  and  adjoining  families;  the  middle 
division,  those  tribes  associated  in  Round  Valley ;  and  the  most 
southern  of  all,  the  Pomo. 

The  following  list  of  plants  carefully  prepared  by  V.  K. 
Chesnut,  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,!  will  apply  to  the 
Round  Valley  and  Pomo  basketry: 

Acer  macrophyllum,  Pal  gun  sche  (Yuki),  maple.  The  Yukis 
of  California  use  the  bark  for  their  basketry.  The  Puget  Sound 
Indians  employ  it  in  their  textiles,  and  Rothrock  says  that  from 
the  inner  bark  the  tribes  of  the  Pacific  slope  weave  baskets,  mats, 
and  hats,  waterproof. 

Adiantum  pedatum.  The  stems  of  maidenhair  fern  attain  a 
length  of  i  to  2  feet  in  the  redwood  belt  of  northern  California,  near 
the  coast.  They  form  the  black  strands  in  baskets,  and  especially 
basket  hats. 

Alnus  rhombifolia,  mountain  alder,  Un  se  (Yuki);  Juskiat' 
and  Kus  (Wailaki);  Gashet'i  (Pomo).  The  fresh  bark  is  used  by 
the  Yukis,  as  well  as  the  Hupa  and  Klamath  Indians  of  California, 
to  colour  their  basket  material. 

Apocynum  cannabinum,  in  Mendocino  County,  California, 
Indian  hemp;  Ma  (Yuki);  Po,  in  Concow;  Masha  (Little  Lake); 
and  Silimma  (Yokaia)  yields  the  common  Indian  fiber.  The  inner 
bark,  collected  in  the  fall,  is  soft  and  strong  for  thread,  twine,  ropes, 
and  nets. 

Asclepias  eriocarpa,  Go  to  la  (Little  Lakes) ;  Bo  ko  (Concow) ; 
Machal  and  Chaak  (Yuki),  poisonous  milkweed.  The  inner  bark 
is  used  by  the  Eel  River,  Concow,  Potter  Valley,  and  Little  Lake 
Indians  for  strings,  nets,  and  other  textiles. 

*  See  Roland  B.  Dixon  and  Albert  L.  Kroeber,  The  Native  Languages 
of  California,  American  Anthropologist,  V,  1903,  pp.  1-26. 

t  Plants  used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino  County,  California.  Con- 
tributions from  the  National  Herbarium,  VII,  pp.  295-408,  Washington, 
1902. 


368  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Butneria  occidentalis,  Sai  ka  Id  (Porno),  spice  bush  or  caly can- 
thus.  Both  the  wood  and  the  bark  from  fresh  shoots  are  used  in 
basketwork. 

Carex,  Tsu  wish  (Porno),  blackroot  sedge.  Used  by  the  Porno 
in  their  coiled  basketry  for  decorating  in  black. 

Carex  sp.  The  long,  tough  rootstocks  of  several  and  perhaps 
most  of  the  sedges  (saw -grass)  in  Mendocino  County,  California,  are 
used  by  the  basketmakers.  Great  patience  is  exercised  in  tracing 
these  from  2  to  5  feet  through  sand  and  mud  and  in  preparing 
the  splints.  The  baskets  made  from  them  are  called  ' '  root  baskets. ' ' 
Sedge  rootstocks  are  the  most  important  underground  material,  and 
the  baskets  made  from  them  are  the  strongest,  most  durable,  and 
most  costly.  Special  characteristics  belong  to  the  different  species. 

Carex  barbarae,  Kahum  (Porno  for  water-tight  baskets).  The 
rootstocks  furnish  the  splints  for  the  white  or  creamy  groundwork 
of  most  Porno  baskets.  They  are  dug  out  with  clam-shells  and 
sticks  aiding  the  hands  and  feet.*  One  end  of  the  stock  is  grasped 
by  the  first  and  second  toes,  the  clam-shell  serves  for  scraping  away 
the  soil,  and  the  stick  for  prying  out  stones  and  loosening  the  ground. 
A  woman  will  secure  15  to  20  strands  a  day.  They  are  placed  in 
water  overnight  to  preserve  the  flexibility  and  to  soften  the  scaly 
bark,  which  is  removed  in  the  morning  by  the  women.  The  end 
of  the  stick  is  chewed  until  the  bark  is  separated.  The  wood  is 
then  held  by  the  teeth,  the  other  end  of  the  stock  is  held  taut  by 
the  first  and  second  toes,  and  the  bark  is  scraped  away,  leaving  a 
tough  white  or  tan-coloured  strand  about  one-half  the  original  thick- 
ness. These  are  done  up  in  small  coils  and  carried  by  the  women 
to  the  camp.  Mr.  Coville  draws  attention  to  a  bit  of  primitive 
agriculture  in  this  connection.  The  Porno  women  insist  that  the 
toughest  and  finest  roots  can  be  obtained  only  at  certain  spots. 
Unconsciously,  they  have  been  making  this  true  by  means  of  their 
digging  sticks  and  clam-shells,  during  all  the  years  loosening  the 
ground  and  removing  weeds. 

Carex  sp.,  Ta  tet  el  (Wailaki),  sea-grass  or  sedge.  The  roots 
and  leaves  used  in  basketry,  especially  for  hats  and  cheap  semi- 
flexible  baskets. 

Ceanothus  integerrimus.  The  Concow  squaws  gather  the  young 
and  flexible  shoots  of  the  California  lilac,  Hibi,  for  the  warp  of 
their  baskets. 

Cere-is  occidentalis.  The  bark  and  the  wood  from  sprouts  of 
*  J.  W.  Hudson,  Overland  Monthly,  XXI,  1893,  pp.  561-578. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  369 

the  redbud,  Cha-ba,  in  Yuki;  Mula,  in  Little  Lake;  Kala-a-kala, 
in  Yokaia;  and  Dop  or  Talk,  in  Concow,  are  used  in  finer  baskets 
as  foundation,  as  weft  in  twined  ware,  and  as  sewing-material  in 
coiled  work.  The  Indians  produce  a  variety  of  results  in  Cercis. 
The  stems  are  sometimes  cut  in  winter  and  early  spring  to  insure 
material  for  the  next  fall.  The  colour  of  the  bark  is  then  slightly 
red,  which  may  be  darkened  by  exposure  to  smoke  and  blackened 
by  soaking  in  dirty  water,  in  water  and  ashes,  or  in  a  decoction  of 
oak  bark  to  which  scraps  of  iron  have  been  added.  The  bark  to 
be  used  in  sewing  coiled  baskets  is  separated  by  steaming.  In 
twined  basketry  some  of  the  white  wood  is  left  adhering  to  the 
bark,  in  which  case  designs  in  two  colours  are  produced,  since  the 
willow  and  carex  are  both  much  darker. 

Corylus  calif ornica.  The  slender  stems  of  the  Hazelnut,  Olman, 
in  Yuki;  Gom  he  ni,  in  Concow;  Ch'  ki,  in  Wailaki;  Cha-ba,  in 
Little  Lake,  are  commonly  used  in  place  of  willows  in  Round  Val- 
ley for  coarse  sieves  and  fish  traps  and  as  warp  in  saw-grass  baskets. 
A  baby-carrying  basket  at  Ukiah  was  made  from  the  same  material. 
The  Calapooias  make  the  finest  openwork  twined  basketry  of  hazel 
sticks. 

The  Coos  and  Rogue  River  ware  resembles  the  Shasta,  the  lat- 
ter produce  excellent  work  in  hazel  stems  (Mrs.  McArthur).  (See 
Plates  4  and  172.) 

Covillea  tridentata,  Tah  sun  up  (Paiutes),  creosote  wood.  It 
is  one  of  the  commonest  industrial  plants  in  southern  California, 
Arizona,  and  southern  Utah.  The  gum  is  used  by  the  Apaches 
for  cement.  It  is  also  used  to  produce  a  greenish-yellow  dye. 
Owing  to  the  odour  emitted  when  heated,  the  plant  is  called  creo- 
sote wood. 

Gymnogramma  triangularis,  Gold-back  fern.  Common  on  open 
brushy  hillsides  throughout  Mendocino  County.  As  in  the  case 
of  the  five-fingered  fern,  this  plant  grows  much  more  thriftily  near 
the  coast.  The  stems  are  also  used  there  in  the  making  of  baskets. 

Juncus  effusus.  The  stalks  of  wire-grass,  Lolum,  in  Yuki; 
Cha-ba,  by  the  Potter  Valley,  Little  Lake,  and  Yokaia  Pomos; 
and  Sito  by  the  Wailaki,  are  used  in  Mendocino  County  for  making 
temporary  baskets.  With  them  also  children  are  initiated  into 
the  art  of  basket-making,  and  rackets  used  in  gathering  pinole  seed 
as  well  as  fish  traps  are  woven. 

Lonicera  interrupta,  Hai  wat  (Yuki),  honeysuckle.  The  Yukis 
employ  the  flexible  stems  slightly  for  hoops  in  basket  borders. 


370  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Philadelphus  gordonianus,  Ka  kuss  (Wailaki) ;  Shon  a  hi  (Little 
Lakes);  Hawn  li  (Yukis),  arrow -wood.  A  species  of  syringa  or 
mock-orange.  The  pithy  steins  are  valued  on  account  of  their 
lightness  for  the  manufacture  of  baskets  used  by  women  for  carry- 
ing babies. 

Pinus  sabiniana,  Pol  cum  ol  (Yuki),  nut  or  digger  pine.  Used 
for  basketry.  The  more  pliable  wood  from  the  root  is  the  chief 
source  of  material  for  making  large  V-shaped  baskets,  which  Little 
Lake  Indians  use  for  carrying  acorns.  The  root  is  warmed  in  hot, 
damp  ashes,  and  the  strands  are  split  off  before  cooling.  They  are 
brittle  when  dry,  but  after  being  soaked  in  water  they  are  easily 
manipulated  in  the  more  simply  woven  baskets.  They  are  not 
sufficiently  pliable,  as  sedge  roots  are,  to  be  used  like  thread  in 
wrapping  round  and  round  a  horizontal  withe. 

Pseudotsuga  mucronata.  The  smaller  roots  of  the  Douglas 
spruce,  Nu,  in  Yuki  language,  are  used  in  fine  Porno  baskets.  They 
are  found  in  sections  8  to  10  feet  long,  uniform  in  thickness,  and 
about  the  diameter  of  a  lead  pencil  (quoting  Hudson). 

Pteridium  aquilinum,  Bis  (Calpella  Porno) ;  Bebi  (Little  Lakes) ; 
Sulala  (Concows);  Dos  (Nomelakkis) ;  Ma  orda-git  (Yokaias), 
the  bracken  fern.  The  hard  wood  is  easily  split  into  flat  splints, 
which  are  sometimes  used  by  the  coast  Indians  for  the  black  strands 
of  their  cheaper  baskets.  They  are  much  less  frequently  used  for 
this  purpose  by  the  Indians  of  Round  Valley  and  Ukiah.  Because 
susceptible  of  a  fine  polish,  they  are  far  weaker  and  more  brittle 
than  the  saw-grass  roots  which  compose  the  weft  of  their  choicest 
baskets.  The  black  colour  is  imparted  by  burying  in  mud. 

Quercus  lobata,  Ky  am  (Yuki),  white  oak,  acorn.  The  bark  is 
used  to  a  very  slight  extent  by  the  Concows  to  blacken  strands  of 
the  redbud  for  use  in  basketry.  Rusty  iron  is  added  to  the  water 
extract  of  the  bark  to  produce  a  black  solution,  in  which  the  strands 
are  allowed  to  remain  for  some  time. 

Rhus  diversiloba.  For  dyeing  the  splints  with  which  some 
Porno  baskets  are  sewed.  Dr.  Hudson  is  quoted  as  saying  that 
an  intense  black  is  produced  by  applying  to  them  the  fresh  juice 
of  poison-oak  in  Porno,  Matuyaho;  in  Wailaki,  Kots  ta.  The  slen- 
der stems  are  also  worked  into  the  foundation  of  coiled  basketry. 
Rhus  aromatica,  says  Purdy,  was  formerly  used  by  tribes  eastward 
from  Ukiah,  as  redbud  is  used  by  Pomos. 

Salix  argyrophylla.  The  silver-leaved  willow,  Bam  Kal  6,  in 
Porno;  Kalalno,  in  Yokaia,  is  considered  the  best  for  coarse  baskets. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  371 

It  is  common  along  Russian  River,  in  California.  It  is  not  found 
at  Round  Valley,  so  these  Indians  would  carry  back  small  supplies 
of  the  slender  stems  when  they  returned  from  hop-picking  near 
Ukiah.  The  roots  are  also  highly  valued  in  making  certain  baskets. 

Scripns  sp.  The  most  valuable  of  the  sedges  for  basket  splints 
in  Mendocino  County  is  an  unidentified  species  of  the  bulrush, 
Stir  pus  sp.,  Tsuwish,  in  Porno.  It  is  an  article  of  commerce. 
Being  rare  near  Ukiah,  it  is  purchased  at  a  cent  a  root  from  plants 
collected  by  Clear  Lake  Indians  and  in  parts  of  Sonoma  County  or 
along  the  seacoast.  The  rootstocks,  about  one-fourth  of  an  inch 
in  diameter,  consist  of  three  distinct  tissues — the  outer,  brown, 
like  parchment;  the  middle;  and  the  heart,  a  tough,  woody  struc- 
ture. The  outer  surface  of  this  woody  tissue,  which  makes  up  the 
great  bulk  of  the  black  fiber  in  the  finest  Porno  baskets,  is  slightly 
ribbed,  and  varies  from  light  brown  to  nearly  jet  black.  The  inte- 
rior is  more  or  less  white.  Some  of  the  dark  splints  are  used  just 
as  they  are,  while  others  are  blackened  with  the  juice  of  poison-oak, 
Rhus  diversiloba,  or  by  burying  them  with  charcoal,  ashes,  and 
earth  for  about  eighty  hours. 

A  detailed  account  of  the  manipulation  of  these  rootstocks  at 
Round  Valley  is  given.* 

Smilax  californica,  the  only  species  of  smilax  in  California,  does 
not  occur  in  Mendocino  County,  but  is  common  along  the  head- 
waters of  the  Upper  Sacramento.  The  fine,  long  trailing  limbs 
are  exceedingly  strong,  and  are  used  to  some  extent  in  Round 
Valley  and  perhaps  at  Ukiah  for  basket-making.  The  Indians  say 
that  the  strands  have  a  brownish-black  colour. 

Tumion  calif ornicum.  Splints  from  the  roots  of  the  California 
nutmeg,  Kahe  in  the  Yokaia  language  and  Ko'-bi  in  Porno,  are  said 
to  be  used  by  the  Pomo  in  some  of  their  fine  baskets. 

Vitis  californica.  She  in  (Pomo) ;  Mot  mo  mam  (Yuki) ;  Kop 
(Numlaki) ;  wild  grape.  The  native  wild  grape  of  the  region 
climbs  over  trees  in  canyons  and  in  damp  places  to  a  height  of 
thirty  feet  or  more.  The  smaller,  woody  parts  of  the  vine  are 
extremely  flexible,  and  are  very  considerably  used  by  the  tribes 
for  the  rims  of  their  large  carrying  baskets.  It  is  gathered  at 
almost  any  time,  soaked  in  water  and  hot  ashes,  after  which  the 
bark  is  removed  and  the  wood  split  into  a  couple  of  strands,  which, 
although  very  coarse,  are  used  substantially  as  thread.  The  tribes  of 
California  make  ropes  and  various  household  articles  from  the  vine. 
*  Plants  used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino,  California,  p.  317. 


372  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

As  a  connecting  link  between  the  Salish  and  other  basketry 
north  of  the  Klamath  River  and  the  true  California  types, 
there  is  here  shown  the  figure  of  an  old  piece  of  basketry 
brought  from  Oregon  more  than  sixty  years  ago  (fig.  164). 
It  is  the  ordinary  coiled  weave  of  the  west  coast,  covered  with 
red  and  white  feathers.  The  latter  are  caught  by  their  stems 
under  the  stitches  as  the  work  progresses,  just  as  in  the  Porno 
and  other  California  tribes  of  to-day.  It  is  interesting  to  find 
this  type  of  work  so  far  north.  It  points  to  the  fact  that  many 
of  the  gaps  which  occur  in  this  study  could  have  been  easily 


FIG.  164. 

OLD  FEATHERED  BASKETS  FROM  OREGON. 
Collected  by  Dr.  J.  L.  Fox,  U-  S.  Navy. 

filled  when  the  Indians  were  in  their  native  situations.  Holmes 
has  other  figures  in  the  same  type  of  basketry,  only  the  feather 
work  is  combined  with  the  ornamentation  in  the  weaving  on 
the  surface.  Attention  is  called  again  to  the  fact  that  the 
imbricated  ware  stopped  short  at  the  Columbia  River.  In  it 
the  plaits  of  grass  or  bark  overlie  one  another  just  as  feathers 
do  in  this  feather  work,  and  the  stem  of  the  feather  is  doubled 
under  the  stitches  in  the  same  way.  To  be  especially  noted 
are  the  groups  of  vertical  stripes  on  the  margin  and  the  chev- 
roned  design  at  the  bottom.  Whether  there  was  genetic  rela- 
tionship between  the  two  remains  to  be  studied  out.  The 
specimen  Catalogue  No.  2,138  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum  was  collected  by  Dr.  J.  L.  Fox,  United  States  Navy, 
of  the  Wilkes  Exploring  Expedition. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  373 

The  Pacific  slope  branch  of  the  Athapascan  family  is  found 
in  the  northwestern  corner  of  California  and  far  northward 
into  Oregon.  The  Hupa  Reservation  in  1864  was  made  to 
include  a  number  of  bands  scattered  around  Trinity  River,  the 
names  of  which  may  be  found  in  the  Smithsonian  Report  for 
1886,  Part  I.  As  late  as  1850  the  Hupa  are  said  to  have  lived 
in  pristine  simplicity.  Autumn  supplied  the  all-important 
acorn,  large  quantities  of  which  were  collected  and  kept  in 
store  for  use  during  the  winter  and  spring.  The  vegetable 
food  is  gathered  chiefly  by  the  women.  The  outfit  of  the 
primitive  gleaner,  miller,  and  cook  was  principally  in  basket- 
work.  While  no  edible  root  or  food  was  despised,  the  oak 
furnished  the  chief  breadstuff.  The  acorns  were  gathered  in 
an  osier  hamper  about  16  inches  high  and  20  inches  in  diam- 
eter, made  in  twined  weaving.  It  was  used  by  the  women  in 
carrying  loads,  supported  by  a  band  across  the  forehead. 
Filled  with  acorns,  this  hamper  was  placed  on  the  back  and 
held  in  position  by  means  of  a  carrying  pad,  consisting  of  a 
disk  of  mat  5  by  4  inches.  About  the  middle  of  October  the 
Indians  beat  the  acorns  from  the  trees  with  long  poles  and 
carry  them  home  in  these  baskets.  The  squaws  remove  the 
hull  by  giving  it  a  slight  tap  with  a  pestle.  The  nuts  are  then 
dried  and  beaten  to  powder  in  a  mill  having  a  basket  hopper. 
The  flour  is  soaked  in  a  hollow  scooped  in  the  sand,  cooked 
into  a  kind  of  mush  in  baskets  by  means  of  hot  stones,  and 
baked  into  bread. 

If  the  harvest  was  of  seeds  instead  of  acorns,  they  were 
winnowed  in  another  basket  of  close  twined  weaving  which  the 
good  woman  had  not  failed  to  decorate  with  graceful  patterns, 
following  that  unconquerable  artistic  instinct  which  is  the 
heritage  of  all  the  peoples  who  breathe  the  air  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  Under  the  heading  of  uses,  a  multitude  of  functions 
for  the  Hupa  basket  will  be  described  in  detail.* 

*  The  Ray  Collection  from  Hupa  Valley,  Smithsonian  Report,  1886, 
PP  205-239. 


374  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Dr.  W.  L.  Jepson  has  determined  for  Dr  P  E.  Goddard 
the  materials  used  by  Hupa  in  baskets.  The  burden  basket, 
the  baby  basket,  and  the  salmon  plate  are  made  entirely  of 
the  shoots  of  hazel,  Corylus  rostrata  var.  californica,  Hupa 
name  muk-kai-kit-loi.  These  shoots  form  the  foundation  or 
warp  of  all  other  basketry  except  the  finest  hats  and  the  cov- 
ered bottles.  For  these,  shoots  of  willow  are  used,  of  which 
Salix  sessilifolia  and  5.  ftuviatilis  var.  argyrophylla  are  indi- 
cated. These  willows  are  not  common  in  Hupa  Valley.  The 
warp  stems,  while  slimmer  than  those  from  the  hazel,  are  said 
not  to  be  so  durable.  They  are  fastened  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  basket  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  body  by  rounds 
twined  with  the  root  of  certain  deciduous  trees.  This  material 
is  called  indiscriminately  "Icut."  The  roots  of  the  more  com- 
mon willow,  as  well  as  the  two  mentioned,  are  used,  besides 
the  root  of  Alnus  oregana,  Vitis  californica,  and  Populus  tricho- 
carpa.  The  principal  weft  of  all  close-woven  baskets  is  com- 
posed of  the  root  of  Conifers.  Of  the  trees  growing  in  or 
near  the  Hupa  reservation,  the  roots  of  Pinus  ponder  osa,  P. 
sabiniana,  and  P.  lambertiana  are  used.  The  selection  of  the 
species  and  of  the  individual  trees  depends  on  their  readiness 
to  split  properly.  These  roots  are  roasted  in  the  ground. 
Besides  these,  the  Hupa  import,  from  the  coast,  material  from 
Sequoia  sempervirens  and  Picea  sitchensis.  These  root  mate- 
terials  are  called  "xai."  The  root  of  the  wild  grape,  Vitis 
californica,  is  used  in  place  of  the  coniferous  roots  in  fine  hats 
for  the  woof.  For  decorative  work  the  leaves  of  Xerophyllum 
tenax  serve  for  white,  and  the  stems  of  Adiantum  pedatum 
for  black.  A  reddish-brown  is  obtained  by  dyeing  the  inner 
part  of  the  stem  of  Woodwardia  tradicans  with  the  bark  of 
Alnus  oregana.  The  primitive  method  of  dyeing  was  to  chew 
the  bark  and  draw  the  splint  through  the  mouth  just  before 
introducing  it  into  the  woof.  The  alder  dye  is  now  some- 
times applied  by  steeping  in  a  dish,  but  the  results  are  said 
to  be  not  so  certain.  Yellow  is  obtained  by  dipping  the  leaves 


Q 

5  § 

6  '€ 

H  s 


PQ 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  375 

of  Xerophyllum  tenax  into  a  decoction  of  Evernia  vulpina. 
The  setting  of  this  dye  is  difficult,  and  many  women  do  not 
use  the  yellow  in  basket-making.  Porcupine  quills  are  dyed 
with  this  lichen,  giving  a  brighter  effect.  Their  use  is  not  com- 
mon. A  few  women  are  now  employing  the  Oregon  grape 
for  dyeing  the  Xerophyllum  leaves.  Baskets  are  sometimes 
collected  for  Hupa  work  which  are  made  by  the  Tolowa,  in 
Del  Norte  County.  These  have  a  steel-gray  colour  obtained 
by  dyeing  the  root  of  the  tideland  spruce  with  rusty  iron. 
The  root  and  iron  are  buried  in  the  damp  ground  for  some 
time.* 

Plate  170  represents  three  granary  baskets  of  the  Hupa 
Indians  in  the  Harvey  collection.  The  figure  shown  on  the 
right  is  used  as  a  cover  for  the  granary.  These  baskets  fur- 
nish excellent  examples  of  form  and  decoration,  as  well  as 
technical  processes,  among  this  Athapascan  group.  It  has 
been  mentioned  before  that  we  have  here  an  example  of  accul- 
turation through  women  of  an  art  created  by  the  conserva- 
tive sex.  If  a  number  of  Hupa  men  of  Athapascan  stock 
broke  into  this  area  and  took  to  themselves  wives  of  the  coun- 
try, the  weaving  processes  would  not  be  changed,  so  that  in 
any  one  of  these  baskets  will  be  found,  beginning  at  the  bot- 
tom, three-strand  twined  weaving;  above  that,  two-strand 
plain  twined  weaving,  and  over  the  surface,  decoration  in 
overlaying.  On  the  granary  baskets  the  triangular  and  rec- 
tangular elementary  forms  are  worked  into  vertical  stripes, 
the  basis  of  which  is  the  bent  line,  or  zigzag,  forming  the 
ornamentation,  while  the  leaves  of  grass  alternate  with  the 
foundation  colour  by  laying  a  strip  of  the  former  on  the  latter 
and  exposing  it  or  turning  it  under  at  will.  Dr.  Goddard, 
in  his  paper  published  by  the  University  of  California,  gives 
the  following  symbolism: 

*  Goddard,  Pliny  Earle,  The  Life  and  Culture  of  the  Hupa.  Publications 
of  the  University  of  California.  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology, 
I,  No.  i,  88  pp.,  30  pis.,  September,  1903;  also  No.  2,  Hupa  Texts,  290 
pp.,  March,  1904. 


376  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

The  isosceles  triangle  the  Hupa  calls  "rattlesnake's  nose" 
(Luwminchuw);  right-angled  triangles  made  with  a  horizontal 
line  meeting  a  vertical  line  are  called  "sharp  and  slanting"  (ches- 
Linalwiltchwel).  Oblique-angled  parallelograms  are  very  fre- 
quently used.  The  name  given  them  is  "set  on  top  of  one  another " 
(niLkutdasaan).  Another  design,  which  lacks  beauty  on  account 
of  its  jagged  appearance,  is  called  "grizzly  bear  his  hand"  (mik- 
yowe  mila).  Another  figure  is  called  "frog  his  hand"  (ttchwa 
mila).  A  third  design  has  angles  projecting  upward  with  the  ver- 
tical lines  on  the  outside  of  the  figure  and  the  oblique  lines  sloping 
inward  and  downward.  This  pattern  is  called  "swallow's  tail" 
(teshechmikye)  or  "points  sticking  up"  (chaxcheuneL). 

When  the  isosceles  triangles  (called  Luwminchuw)  are  grouped 
one  above  another  they  are  called  Luwminchuw  niLkutdasaan 
("snake's  nose  piled  up ").  When  these  figures  come  back  to  back 
so  as  to  form  diamonds  alternating  with  the  background ,  they  are 
called  Lokyomenkonch  ("sturgeon's  back").  When  the  figure 
apex  is  superimposed  on  a  trapezoid  the  name  cha  is  given  to  the 
design.  These  figures  are  nearly  always  so  connected  as  to  encircle 
the  basket,  when  the  name  LenaLdauw  is  given  to  it,  signifying  "it 
encircles."  A  design  which  seems  to  be  the  trapezoids  superim- 
posed is  called  LekyuwineL  ("they  come  together.")  The  con- 
ception of  the  design  seems  to  be  that  of  the  second  variety  of 
triangles  back  to  back.  A  series  of  rectangular  parallelograms 
superimposed  so  that  each  higher  one  projects  to  the  right  of  the 
one  below  it,  the  whole  being  bordered  by  a  double  line  conforming 
to  the  outline,  is  called  kowitselminat  ("worm  goes  round"  or 
"worm's  stairway").  The  oblique-angled  parallelograms  in  pairs, 
with  the  upper  one  at  the  right,  are  the  designs  most  frequently 
found  on  the  hats.  They  are  found  in  series  on  the  storage  baskets 
(djelo).  Usually  even  numbers  are  employed,  preserving  the  sym- 
metry of  the  zone.  Designs  in  red  often  have  horizontal  lines  in 
black.  Oblique  lines  in  white  often  run  across  the  design.  When 
such  lines  run  through  the  oblique-angled  parallelogram  they  are 
called  niLkutdasaan  mikiteweso  ("  one-on-the-other  its  scratches  "). 

In  his  monograph  on  Hupa  Texts,  Doctor  Goddard  gives 
the  Formula  of  Medicine  for  making  baskets. 

Plate  171  represents  a  Shasta  basketmaker  in  northern 
California,  wearing  one  of  the  beautiful  twined  basket  hats, 


. 


Plate  172.     See  page  377 


BASKETS  MADE  FROM  HAZEL  STEMS 

Collection  of  Mrs.  Harriet  K.  McArthur 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  377 

so  called  among  this  tribe.  She  also  has  about  her,  as  a  gar- 
ment, a  deerskin  decorated  with  long  fringes  of  false  braid  in 
straw,  the  work  done  in  a  single  strand. 

From  Governor  Daggett  comes  the  information  that  the 
California  Indians  about  him  make  the  frame  of  the  coiled 
baskets  of  hazel  twigs  skinned  (Corylus  calif ornicd).  The 
weaving  is  done  with  split  pine  root.  The  ornamental  patterns 
are  produced  by  sour-grass,  maidenhair  fern  and  bird  quills 
obtained  in  trade.  The  white  splint  is  dyed  by  being  chewed 
in  the  woman's  mouth  together  with  alder  bark,  thus  making 
a  kind  of  animated  vat  of  herself.  For  the  conical  carrying 
basket,  the  Shasta  Indian  name  is  as  tim  num.  Papoose 
basket,  locks  too ;  soup  cooking  basket,  sal  am  poki ;  soup  eat- 
ing basket,  pas  tarrum ;  large  storehouse,  sip  nook ;  cover  to 
same,  ash  roos;  mortar  basket  with  hole  in  bottom,  kraam 
num ;  acorn  sifter,  a  flat  disk,  ten  na  bra ;  acorn  bowl,  moo  roch. 

Mrs.  Harriet  K.  McArthur  has  in  her  collection  also  a  large 
number  of  Shasta,  Rogue  River,  and  Calapooia  baskets,  made 
in  open  twined  work  from  stems  of  the  hazel.  (See  Plate  172.) 

South  of  the  Hupa  Indians  is  the  Round  Valley  Reserva- 
tion with  the  following-named  tribes :  Concow  (Pujunan) ; 
Little  Lakes  (Kulanapan) ;  Redwoods  and  Yukies  (Yukian) ; 
Wailakis  (Copehan) ;  Pit  Rivers  (Palaihnihan),  and  the 
Nomelakis  (Copehan  or  Wintun  family).  A  moment's  thought 
will  show  why  it  is  that  varieties  in  basket  types  come  from 
this  reservation.  The  Indian  tribes  of  the  neighbourhood  are 
mixed  with  those  of  the  Sacramento  Valley  and  Maidu  or 
Pujunan  people  east  of  the  Sierras.  With  biological  mixture 
there  has  been  corresponding  fertilisation  of  ideas. 

N.  J.  Purcell,  for  a  long  time  agent  among  the  Round 
Valley  Indians,  describes  the  gathering  basket  as  coarse 
meshed  and  roughly  constructed.  He  has  sent  to  the  National 
Museum  an  example  made  by  the  Little  Lake  tribe.  It  is 
woven  of  sticks  with  the  bark  on,  and  is  very  quickly  made. 
It  has  a  buckskin  string  attached  about  the  center,  by  which 


378  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

it  is  carried.  It  is  used  for  gathering  acorns,  nuts,  grain,  etc. 
When  filled,  this  basket  is  emptied  into  a  large  carrying  basket, 
this  being  repeated  until  the  larger  basket  is  full. 

The  large  carrying  basket  is  always  put  in  some  conve- 
nient place  and  a  smaller  one  is  used  in  gathering  nuts  or  grain. 
Several  of  the  other  tribes  there  use  the  same  basket,  though 
it  seems  to  have  originated  among  the  Little  Lake  Indians. 
The  willow  of  which  it  is  composed  is  of  the  ordinary  kind 
which  is  seen  along  nearly  all  the  creeks  in  the  East,  and  is 
equally  plentiful  here. 

The  sticks  are  generally  used  while  green,  though  they  are 
frequently  gathered  in  quantities,  allowed  to  dry,  then  soaked 
in  water  as  they  are  required  for  use. 

The  carrying  sack  is  made  like  an  ordinary  hunting  bag 
and  about  the  size.  It  is  manufactured  by  the  Concow  Indians 
only.  The  buckskin  string  attached  is  thrown  across  the 
shoulder,  allowing  the  sack  to  swing  by  the  side,  as  we  carry 
the  hunting  bag.  The  material  of  which  it  is  made  is  from  a 
weedlike  plant  that  grows  from  three  to  five  feet  high,  found 
in  but  one  place  in  this  country.  At  the  foot  of  Black  Butte, 
about  7,000  feet  above  sea  level,  it  grows  in  great  quan- 
tities. This  plant,  bo-coak,  bears  a  large  white  flower,  which 
is  filled  with  seed  and  has  quite  an  agreeable  odour.  The  leaves 
are  large  and  long,  tapering  at  the  points.  In  winter  the 
stalks  die  and  become  hard  and  dry,  and  are  gathered  in  great 
quantities  by  the  Indians.  The  bark  is  carefully  taken  off 
and  the  material  from  which  the  twine  is  made  is  stripped  from 
the  inside  of  the  bark.  This  is  as  white  as  cotton  and  seems 
much  superior  in  strength.  In  making  his  twine,  the  Indian 
seats  himself,  after  first  removing  his  trousers,  takes  enough 
of  this  flax  to  twist  into  about  the  size  of  No.  10  cotton  in  his 
left  hand,  lays  it  across  the  fleshy  part  of  his  right  leg,  licks 
the  palm  of  his  right  hand,  places  it  upon  the  flax,  and 
twists  it.  In  this  way  they  make  twine  of  all  sizes,  from  that 
of  the  coarse  sewing  thread  to  that  of  a  half -inch  rope. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  379 

In  early  times  all  the  sewing  they  did  was  with  this  thread, 
using  a  sharpened  bone  for  a  needle.  The  larger  size  twine  was 
for  making  fish  nets,  bird  nets,  carrying  sacks,  snaring  deer,  etc. 

The  mortar  basket  is  used  for  pounding  acorns,  grain,  all 
kinds  of  nuts,  and  seeds.  It  is  made  of  tough  roots  of  the  fir, 
which  are  usually  gathered  in  spring  or  winter,  when  the 
ground  is  soft.  Roots  of  the  small  saplings  are  preferred, 
being  tougher  than  those  of  the  old  tree.  The  size  of  the  roots 
gathered  varies  from  one-half  to  one  and  a  half  inches.  These 
are  buried  under  hot  ashes  and  are  allowed  to  remain  thus  for 
an  hour.  They  are  then  taken  out,  not  burned,  but  very  hot. 
This  steaming  process  toughens  them  and  makes  them  split 
more  easily,  besides  seasoning  them  to  some  extent.  The 
squaw  takes  this  hot  root  in  both  hands,  seizes  it  near  the  end 
with  her  front  teeth,  throws  her  head  back  and  her  hands  for- 
ward, and  the  root  is  split  exactly  in  the  center  in  less  than 
half  a  minute. 

The  two  halves  are  again  split  in  like  manner,  and  so  on 
until  the  pieces  are  about  twice  as  large  as  required.  The 
craftswoman  is  now  more  careful,  and  the  last  piece  is  some- 
times started  with  a  sharp  rock  or  knife,  but  usually  with  the 
teeth.  One  end  of  the  splint  is  caught  in  the  right  hand,  the 
other  being  kept  between  the  teeth.  The  thumb  and  fore- 
finger of  the  left  hand  are  clinched  tightly  on  the  stick  below 
the  mouth.  The  head  and  right  hand  are  now  pulled  slowly 
from  each  other.  As  the  operation  proceeds,  the  finger  and 
thumb  of  the  left  hand  are  slowly  slipped  down  in  front  of  the 
split  part.  Thus  this  last  piece  is  divided  accurately  in  the 
middle.  The  splints  are  not  used  at  once,  but  are  tied  up  in 
large  circular  coils  and  allowed  to  season,  which,  however, 
does  not  take  long,  as  they  are  thin  and  the  heating  process 
hastens  the  operation.  Being  now  prepared  to  make  a  basket, 
the  woman  uncoils  the  splints  and  throws  them  into  a  pan  or 
basket  of  water,  which  renders  them  pliable  and  easy  to  be 
worked.  The  ribs  of  the  basket  are  willow  switches  with  the 


380  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

bark  scraped  off.  In  beginning  the  basket,  two  of  the 
splints  are  taken  from  the  water  and  attached  to  one  of  the 
ribs  with  a  kind  of  wrapped  knot,  so  fastened  as  to  allow  one 
splint  to  stand  toward  the  weaver  and  one  directly  from  her. 
Another  rib  is  now  set  close  to  the  first  one,  and  the  splints  are 
reversed — that  is,  the  outside  one  is  pulled  toward  the  weaver 
and  the  inside  one  is  put  from  her;  this  forms  a  half -turn 
around  each  side  of  a  rib,  the  splints  crossing  or  twining  be- 
tween the  ribs.  The  same  weave  is  used  in  the  construction 
of  the  whole  basket.  Around  the  extreme  top  of  this  basket 
is  a  half -inch  stick,  usually  wrapped  or  stitched  on  with  small 
vines  split  in  the  center.  The  dark  red  material  used  occa- 
sionally in  this  basket  (Cercis  occidentalis)  is  found  in  the 
mountains,  and  is  an  undergrowth  never  attaining  a  size  larger 
than  one's  ankle.  The  Indians  call  it  "mo-lay."  It  bears  a 
red  blossom  and  small,  slender  switches,  which  are  of  a  dark 
red  colour,  which  grow  up  at  the  bottom  of  the  larger  bush. 
These  are  split  open  in  the  middle  in  the  same  way  as  the  fir 
root,  save  that  they  are  not  heated.  The  stitches  represent 
half  the  size  of  the  stick,  as  it  is  split  only  once.  The  wood 
with  bark  off  is  snow  white. 

Mr.  Purcell,  in  describing  a  pretty  little  basket  of  grass 
root  covered  with  red  feathers,  made  by  the  Little  Lake  Indians, 
says  every  mother  in  this  tribe  presents  one  of  these  baskets 
to  her  child  when  it  is  about  seven  years  of  age,  with  the  admo- 
nition to  take  care  of  the  gift.  They  have  a  superstition  that 
if  the  basket  is  lost  some  evil  will  befall  the  child.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  obtain  one  of  these  from  the  Little  Lakes,  the  specimen 
mentioned  having  been  secured  in  the  Concow  tribe. 

Under  the  name  of  Porno  are  included  a  great  number  of 
tribes  or  little  bands,  thirty,  according  to  Hudson,  Purdy, 
and  Wilcomb — sometimes  one  in  a  valley,  sometimes  more — 
clustered  in  the  region  where  the  headwaters  of  the  Eel  and 
Russian  rivers  interlace,  along  the  latter  and  around  the  estu- 
aries of  the  coast.  In  disposition  the  Porno  are  quite  differ- 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


ent  from  the  Yuki  and  their  congeners,  being  simple,  friendly, 
peaceable,  and  inoffensive.  They  are  also  much  less  cunning 
and  avaricious  and  less  quickly  imitative  of  the  whites  than 
the  lively  tribes  on  the  Klamath,  to  whom  they  are  inferior 
in  intellect.  As  to  their  physique,  there  prevail  on  the  Rus- 
sian River  essentially  the  same  types  as  that  seen  in  the  Sac- 
ramento Valley.  When  first  occupied  by  the  European,  the 
valleys  inhabited  by  the  Porno  teemed  with  wild  grasses  and 
the  streams  were  hedged  in  with  carex  and  willow.  The 
native  grasses  have  almost  disappeared,  while  the  carices 
have  given  place  in  the  lowlands  to  hops  and  alfalfa.  Many 
ranchers  forbid  an  Indian  to  dig  on  their  lands,  thus  limiting 
the  weaving-material  supply  to  outlying  canyons  or  compel- 
ling a  substitution  of  inferior  quality.  Sometimes  an  indif- 
ferent worker  will  use  but  one  character  of  material  in  a  bas- 
ket ;  for  instance,  the  redbud  shoots  for  warp  and  the  two  con- 
trasting sides  of  the  cortex  for  pattern.  This  method,  called 
bi-to'-i,  effects  looseness  of  weft  and  warp,  incongruity  of  col- 
ours, and  instability  of  the  vessel,  and  is  strongly  condemned 
by  an  expert.  Some  weavers  will  conscientiously  refuse  to 
work  rather  than  substitute  hai  (woody  material)  for  ma-yem' 
(roots).  The  following  notes  by  J.  W.  Hudson  accompanied 
his  collection  to  the  National  Museum : 

Vegetal  materials  for  Porno  basketry 


Indian  name. 

Scientific  name. 

Common  name. 

Parts  used. 

Ka-hum'  

Carex  barbara             .    . 

California  sedge.  . 

Tsu-wish'  

Shi-k5'  

B5m  

Salix  sessifolia  

Hinds's  willow  

Prepared  stems 

Ma-16-ma-16  

Prepared  inner  bark 

Ka-ll'-she  

Pinus  sabiniana 

Nut  pine  

Split   root. 

Ka-wa'  

Douglas  spruce  

Root. 

Bis  .... 

Mu-te  

Redbud        .          ... 

Bark  of  shoots. 

Pshfl-ba'  

Corylus  californica  

Beaked  hazel  

Stems. 

Bam-hi  

Vitis  calif  omica.  . 

Grape   

Vine. 

Ma-iha'  

California  flax  

Prepared  stems. 

Wilcomb  finds  black  designs  sewed  in  tule  root  and  fern  roots  also. 


382 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Animal  materials  for  Porno  basketry 


Indian  name. 

Scientific  name. 

Common  name. 

Parts  used. 

Ki-ya  
Ka-ya  
TSm  

Saxidomus  gracilis  
Cardium  corbis  
Haliotis  

Prepared  shell. 
Prepared  shell. 
Prepared   shell. 

Ka-tate'  

Melanerpes  formicivorus  . 

Woodpecker  

Throat  and  scalp  feathers 

Ju-shll'   

Chi-ka-ka  

Lophortyx  californicus  .  . 

Crested  quail  

Crest. 

Ka-yan'  

Anas  boschus  

Mallard  

Scalp  feathers. 

Tsa-wa-ltt  

Cyanura  stelleri  

California  jay  

Neck  feathers. 

Ba-chf-a  

Shai-i      

Tsu-li-a  

Kai-y  6-0  

Po*  

Magnesite  

Magnesite  

Burned,  prepared  cylin- 
ders. 

*  Mineral. 

Ka-hum'  is  split  into  strings  or  flat  splints  and  kept  wet 
during  the  process  of  construction.  Colour,  light  tan  or  white. 
Used  in  sewing  coiled  basketry. 

Tsu-wish'  is  buried  in  ashes  for  about  eighty  hours,  thus 
dyeing  to  shades  of  black ;  then  split  into  splints  like  Ka-hum'. 

Shi-k6,  split  into  splints.  Whole  stems  are  used  for  fish 
weirs;  colour,  cream. 

Bam.  i.  Young  shoots  decorticated  and  polished  for 
foundation  of  coiled  basketry;  colour,  straw. 

2.  Splittings  from  bark  of  young  shoots. 

3.  Splittings  of  young  shoots. 

Ma-lo-ma-lo.  Inner  bark  strips ;    colour,  dark  tan. 

Ka-li-she.  Split  root;    colour,  buff. 

Ka-wa.  Split  root,  trimmed  limbs ;  colour,  gray 

Bis.  Chewed  and  cleansed  root,  split;    colour,  black. 

Mu-16.  Bark  of  shoots,  split  into  tape  with  a  bit  of  wood 
adhering ;  colour,  burnt  sienna.  Used  in  sewing  coiled  basketry. 

Pshu-ba.  Trimmed  stems. 

Bam-tu.  Vine,  used  rough  or  decorticated. 

Ma-sha.  Crushed,  hackled,  and  combed. 

Ka-ya.  Manufactured  from  clam-shells;  current  among 
the  Indians  as  "  Indian  silver."  Monetic  base. 


Plate  173.     See  page  383 

UNFINISHED  POMO  BASKET,  IN  TEE  WEAVE,  SHOWING  TECHXIC 

1  Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  383 

Po.  Magnesite,  mined  in  Lake  County,  California.  Heated 
dull  red,  then  tempered  in  hot  water.  Knapped  and  scoured 
into  cylinders. 

Bored.  Current  as  Indian  gold.     Monetic  base. 

All  prepared  vegetals  turn  dark  with  age,  and  especially 
by  the  smoke  from  the  open  fires  in  Indian  huts. 

Tsu-wish  ranks  first  in  value;  a  bunch  equals  100  Ka-ya. 
A  bunch  of  Ka-hum'  equals  65  Ka-ya;  Mu-le,  20  Ka-ya. 

Plate  173  illustrates  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Porno  Indians 
left  unfinished  to  show  the  workmanship.  The  foundation 
is  in  the  style  called  Tee  weaving,  twined  work,  described  and 
illustrated  on  page  77  and  in  fig.  27.  These  structural  fea- 
tures are  clearly  set  forth  in  the  plate.  In  the  foreground  the 
vertical  and  the  horizontal  warp,  as  well  as  the  twined  weft, 
appear  in  their  true  association.  The  body  sewing  is  done 
with  white  splints  of  me  16  or  redbud  (Cercis  occidentals) ;  the 
figures,  representing  mountains,  are  wrought  with  brown 
splints  of  cercis.  It  is  ten  inches  in  diameter,  collected  by 
J.  W.  Hudson,  and  is  Catalogue  No.  200,013  m  the  United 
States  National  Museum. 

In  feather  work,  each  feather  is  plucked  from  the  prepared 
skin  of  the  bird  and  neatly  caught  under  a  stitch,  which  is 
then  drawn  tight.  They  are  used  either  to  heighten  the  colour 
without  aiding  the  design  or  the  design  is  in  the  feathers  and 
not  in  the  stitches.  For  the  former,  quail  plumes  and  the  red 
feathers  from  the  woodpecker's  head  are  employed.  The  red 
feathers  are  placed  regularly  but  thinly  on  the  stitches  of  the 
upper  half  of  the  basket,  and  the  quail  plumes  scattered,  or 
below  three  rows  of  shell  disks  (kaia)  on  the  upper  edge  of  the 
basket.  In  the  feather  basket  proper  there  are  two  varieties 
called  "tapica"  and  "epica."  The  tapica  is  the  so-called  sun 
basket;  but  Purdy  insists  that  the  word  means  "red  basket." 
The  oldest  specimens  are  saucer-shaped,  covered  with  red 
feathers,  decorated  with  pendants  of  kaia  and  abalone  and 
with  circles  of  shell  money.  The  use  of  other  feathers  than 


384  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

red  is  a  charming  innovation.  The  Ballo  kai  Porno  name  for 
feather  baskets  in  any  other  shape  is  "epica."  When  the 
Pomo  use  shell  disks  (kaia)  to  decorate  coiled  basketry,  a 
thread  is  carried  along  under  the  stitches  and  the  disks  threaded 
on  as  needed.  Beads  are  usually  applied  in  the  same  way, 
but  in  some  examples  they  are  threaded  on  the  sewing  fila- 
ments. (Carl  Purdy.) 

There  is  no  more  interesting  group  of  Indians  in  America 
than  the  Pomo  with  respect  to  the  variety  of  technical  pro- 
cesses in  basketry.  They  not  only  understand  many  of  the 
proc  sses  common  among  other  tribes,  but  have  introduced 
one  or  two  types  of  manipulation  peculiar  to  themselves.  The 
following  classification,  prepared  by  J.  W.  Hudson  and  Carl 
Purdy,  shows  the  variety  of  basketwork  made  by  them: 

TWINED    WORK    (TSHAMA) 

1.  Pshukan  (Shakan,  Purdy),  coarse  twined  work  of  shuba 
or  hazel. 

2.  Pshutsin,  wrapped  weft,  happily  called  backstitching 
by  Hudson. 

3.  Bamtush,  plain  twined  weaving. 

4.  Shuset,  twine  over  two  warp  rods,  twilled. 

5.  Sheetsin,  three-strand  braid  or  twine. 

6.  Lit,  Makah  style,  wrapped  weft  twined  (figs.  20,  21). 

7.  Tee,  twined  weaving  over  lattice  foundation. 

COILED   WORK    (SHIBU) 

8.  Shailo,  foundation  of  splints. 

9.  Tsai,  foundation  of  one  rod. 

*      10.  Baumko,  two-stem  foundation  laid  vertically. 

11.  Bamshibu,  foundation  of  three  rods. 

12.  Bamteck,  four-stem  foundation. 

13.  Tsawam,  the  half -hitch  work  on  cradles. 

Purdy  adds  ringed  and  sewed;  each  circle  of  foundation 
complete.  These  names  are  from  Yokaia,  Upper  Yokaia, 
Calpella,  and  Potter  Valley.  The  word  for  basket  in  Potter 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  385 

is  Pika;    at  Upper  Lake,  Sitol;    at  Lower  Lake,  Kolob;    at 
Cache  Creek,  Kawah. 

1.  Pshu-kan'  (fish  weir)  in  its  simplest  form  is  the  binding 
of  a  row  of  upright  warp  rods  by  means  of  pairs  of  hazel  or 
willow  shoots,  passing  them  horizontally  with  a  half  twist  in 
each  space.     Undressed  material  is  the  rule,  but  in  more  deli- 
cate household  vessels  the  wood  is  decorticated,  even  pol- 
ished.    Hazel  (Shu  ba,  the  fisherman)  was  the  original  mate- 
rial.    It  is  nothing  more  than  a  very  coarse  open  twined  work, 
passing  now  and  then  into  three-strand  twine.     (See  fig.  20.) 

2.  Pshutsin,  a  very  substantial  means  of  framing  a  large, 
heavy  structure,    such   as   granaries,   sheathing  for  thatch, 
game  fences,  etc.     It  is  in  effect  wrapped  twined  weaving, 
seen  also  in  Mohave  carrying  frames  and  Andaman  baskets. 
From  the  periphery  a  strand  of  grapevine  loosely  encircles 
two  ribs,  passing  to  the  left  over  four  ribs,  then  backward, 
catching  two  or  more  and  repeating  gradually,  back  two,  for- 
ward four,  inward  to  the  center  or  apex.     A  second  vine 
catches  a  rib  at  the  bottom  of  the  roof,  passing  to  the  left  over 
four  ribs,  encircling  two,  thence  zigzags  parallel  with  No.   i 
to  the  top.     This  is  repeated  till  spaces  are  covered.     Pshutsin 
effects  in  house  building  a  coarse  mesh  at  the  foundation,  but 
gradually  closed  in  at  the  apex,  where    most    needed.     In 
granaries  and  cages  the  conditions  are  reversed,  but  the  effect 
is  the  same.     Fences  require  an  additional  top  vine.     (See 

fig.  13.) 

3.  Bamtush    (Bamtu,  grapevine),  plain  twined   weaving. 
Coloured  patterns  and  esthetic  art  were  here  born,  the  brown 
bark  of  the  vine  contrasting  with  the  pale  yellow  of  the  inner 
vine  splittings.     The  grape  has  long  since  been  discarded  for 
stronger  and  more  polished  material.    Bamtush  is  the  strongest 
weave,  and  is  used  in  carrying  baskets,  acorn  baskets,  and  very 
large,  heavy  mush  baskets.     There  is  a  warp  of  willow  or 
other  stems  radiating  from  the  bottom.     On  this  the  weft 
is  laid  in  pairs,  the  two  splints  being  twisted  a  half  turn  in 


386  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

passing  a  warp  stem.     The  effect  is  that  of  ribbed  cloth  or 
corduroy.     The    ornamentation   is    usually    in    bands.     (See 

fig.    15-) 

4.  Shuset  is  twining  over  two  warps  and  alternating  from 
round  to  round,  and  affords  the  amplest  opportunity  for  artis- 
tic display.     It  is  called  twilled  twined  work,  and  its  surface 
is  the  smoothest  of  Porno   leaves;    the  patterns  are  bold  and 
clear  and  cover  the  whole  area.     It  is  the  only  weave  whose 
designs  are  not  woven  through.     It  has  also  the  mode  of  deli- 
cate structure.     It  is  used  in  large  acorn  baskets,  also  in  mush 
baskets,  being  strong,  smooth,  and  moderately  close.     Some 
fine  gift  baskets  are  also  in  this  weave,  and  it  seems  to  be 
susceptible  of  much  more  elaborate  ornamentation  than  the 
plain  twined  work.      The  word  Shuset,  says  Hudson,  is  under- 
stood only  as  far  south  as  Ukiah  City,  the  Yokaia  term  for 
diagonal  twine  being  Bam  tsai.     (See  fig.  20.) 

5.  Sheetsin  is  a  style  of  three-strand  twined  weaving  in 
which  at  each  third  of  a  turn  one  weft  filament  is  carried 
behind  a  warp  stem.     It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  when  the 
bundle  of  weft  filaments  has  made  a  whole  revolution,  each 
one  of  them  will  have  been  carried  behind  the  warp.     On  the 
inside,  this  basketry  does  not  differ  in  appearance  from  com- 
mon twined  weaving,  but  on  the  outside  each  weft  element 
passes  over  three  warp  stems  and  under  one. 

There  is  a  peculiar  type  of  Sheetsin  used  chiefly  to  start 
the  foundations  of  twined  baskets.  It  is  a  three-strand  weft 
in  which  a  braid  is  formed  instead  of  a  twine,  one  of  its  ele- 
ments passing  over  each  warp,  the  other  two  remaining  out- 
side. On  the  inside  the  effect  is  that  of  plain  twined  weaving, 
while  on  the  outside  the  effect  is  diagonal.  (See  fig.  28.) 

6.  Lit  is  a  style  of  twined  weaving  in  which  one  of  the  ele- 
ments remains  on  the  inside  of  the  basket  and  the  other  is 
wrapped  around  the  checks  formed  by  the  crossing  of  this 
horizontal   element   with   the   vertical   warps.     The    Makah 
Indians  of  Cape  Flattery  employ  this  technic  almost  exclu- 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  387 

sively,  but  Hudson  says  the  Kulanapan  tribes  used  it  only  to 
give  variety  to  a  surface  in  which  plain  twine  and  Shuset  are 
used.  On  the  same  authority,  this  word  Lit  is  known  among 
all  the  Porno  tribes,  even  among  the  Tsawalu  Porno,  near 
Guernerville.  (See  figs.  21  and  22.) 

7.  Tee  (intricate)  is  a  double  structure,  a  Bamtush  rein- 
forced by  horizontal  warp  across  the  outside  of  the  vertical. 
On  the  inside  this  ware  is  indistinguishable  from  plain  twined 
work.     Its  characteristics  are  great  strength,  the  closest  mesh, 
and  a  pattern  dim  and  impressional.     It  is  the  most  difficult 
and  highest  priced  of  the  Tshama  weaves.     The  openwork 
basket  trays  in  Tee  weave  are  called  by  Dr.  Hudson  psher 
kom,  or  fish  plate.     (See  fig.  27.) 

The  name  Shi  bu,  or  Tschibu,  applies,  says  Purdy,  in  real- 
ity to  only  the  three-stick  coiled  baskets.  The  full  name  is 
Bam  shi  bu  or  Bamsibu — sticks  three.  No  branch  of  the  Porno 
uses  it  except  for  three-stick  baskets,  and  only  the  Calpella, 
Kalshe,  and  Ballo  bai  Porno  use  it  at  all  as  a  basket  name. 
One-stick  baskets  in  Calpella,  Kalshe,  and  Ballo  bai  Porno 
are  bam  cha,  stick  one,  or  tishais.  The  filaments  of  Porno 
shibu  coiled  basketry  are  shaved  down  to  uniform  width  and 
thickness  with  the  greatest  care. 

Those  who  are  studying  the  technic  of  basketry  will  find 
great  possibilities  in  the  three-strand  weaving,  including :  (i) 
3-strand  twine,  braid  and  sennit,  in  each  of  which  all  three 
strands  do  the  same  work;  (2)  the  Thompson  weave,  in  which 
one  strand  is  wrapped  about  the  other  two  twined ;  (3)  Tee 
twine  in  which  two  are  twined  about  the  other  one. 

8.  Shailo,  suggested  by  the  spiral  rib  of  Tee,  was  con- 
structed of  a  spiral  coil  of  fir-root  fibers  bound  to  its  adjacent 
coil  below  by  a  single  strand  of  the  same  material  catching 
in  the  lower  coil  fibers  or  the  tops  of  its  lacings.     This  method, 
the  Protean  Shibu,  developed  and  considered  by  other  Cali- 
fornia Indians,  notably  Yokut,  as  the  acme  of  art,  has  long 
since  been  discarded  by  the  Porno  as  inadequate  to  the  de- 


388  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

mands  of  even  close  weaving  and  pattern.  However,  it 
proved  the  coil  to  be  practicable,  and  from  it  evolved  Tsai 

9.  In  the  Tsai  (bam-cha,  one  rib)  or  single-rod  coiled 
basketry  the  foundation  is  a  single  willow  shoot  of  uniform 
thickness  throughout,  seasoned  and  smoothed>  spiralling  from 
base  to  rim,  and  sewed  down  with  narrow  splints  of  various 
materials  Two  rods  are  inclosed  in  each  stitch  which  passes 
beneath  the  foundation  of  the  previous  turn,  the  stitches 
interlocking.  This  structure  is  quite  light  and  elegant,  per- 
mitting the  most  delicate  treatment,  both  in  stitch  and  pat- 
tern. Specimens  frequently  average  sixty  stitches  to  the 
linear  inch.  (See  fig.  46.) 

iOc  Baumko  is  the  Porno  name  for  coiled  basketry  on 
a  foundation  of  two  stems,  one  above  the  other.  It  is  an  eco- 
nomical method  of  work,  for  it  widens  the  coil  and  to  that 
extent  diminishes  the  amount  of  sewing.  (See  fig.  47  and 
compare  Mescalero,  page  467.) 

11.  Bamshibu  or  bamtsuwu  (tsu-ba,  three)  consists  of  a 
three-rod  warp  or  coil  bound  down  by  its  lacings,  catching  in 
the  lacings  and  one  stem  of  the  next  lower  coil.     This  is  justly 
regarded  by  the  Pomo  as  the  highest  type  of  basket  art.     Its 
materials  require  the  most  careful  tests  of  evenness,  pliability, 
and  colour.     The   legitimate  function  of  treble  ribs,  besides 
solidity,  is  their  adaptability  for  retaining  the  bulbs  of  feathers, 
and  was  doubtless  created  by  an  incentive  for  this  rich  orna- 
mentation.    Comparison  with  other  styles  of  work  reveals 
the  fact  that  by  reason  of  fine  material  and  pressing  together 
of  the  stitches  the  sewing  conceals  the  foundation,  while  in 
the  varieties  before  mentioned  the  latter  is  visible  between 
the  stitches.     (See  fig.  50.) 

12.  Bamteck  is  scarcely  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  separate 
style  of  weaving.     It  is  simply  a  variety  of  No.    n.     The 
manipulation  of  the  stitches  is  precisely  the  same  in  both. 

13.  Tsawam.     This   is   an   application   of   the   backward 
and  forward  braiding  or  false  braiding  found  on  the  margins 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  389 

of  many  baskets  and  described  in  the  proper  place  in  this 
work.  The  rods  of  the  cradle  are  held  together  by  a  coarse 
cotton  string  obtained  from  the  traders,  and  was  formerly 
made  of  splint  Carried  across  the  warp  rods,  the  weft  mate- 
rial passes  forward  four,  backward  two,  right;  forward  four, 
backward  two,  left — and  so,  alternately  backward  to  the 
right  or  left,  forms  a  very  neat  braid  on  one  side  of  the  basket 
and  what  looks  like  two  rows  of  twined  weaving  on  the  other. 
The  making  of  a  fine  coiled  basket  requires  an  infinite 
amount  of  patience.  The  rootstocks,  carefully  gathered  dur- 
ing the  summer  and  early  autumn,  are  split  into  fine  strands 
for  direct  use.  At  Round  Valley  the  process  is  as  follows: 
The  rootstocks,  denuded  of  their  outer  coverings,  are  thor- 
oughly soaked  in  warm  water,  and  one  end  of  a  root  is  divided 
through  the  center,  by  means  of  the  finger  nails,  into  three 
parts.  One  of  these  parts  is  held  firmly  between  the  teeth, 
while  by  means  of  the  fingers  the  whole  root  is  carefully  and 
very  evenly  split  into  three  sections.  Each  of  these  sections 
is  again  separated  into  three  parts  in  the  same  manner,  and 
the  same  process  is  carried  out  until  the  strands  are  as  fine  as 
may  be  desired,  the  value  of  the  basket  depending  in  great 
measure  upon  the  fineness  of  the  strands  used  as  well  as  on  the 
general  beauty  of  the  finished  fabric.  These  strands  are  used 
not  like  those  from  the  pine  root  in  twined  work,  but  for  thread 
for  sewing  coiled  ware.  In  beginning  the  basket,  three  very 
pliant  stems  are  so  selected  that  when  placed  together  their 
combined  cross-sections  will  be  nearly  circular.  The  use  of 
three  "sticks"  instead  of  one,  as  is  sometimes  the  case  in  less 
costly  baskets,  gives  much  more  elasticity  and  greater  strength 
to  the  basket.  The  strand  is  wrapped  tightly  about  one  end 
of  the  compound  withe,  and  as  the  wrapping  progresses  the 
wand  is  bent  into  a  minute  circle;  the  central  hole  is  filled  in 
by  stitching  over  and  over  again,  and  with  this  as  a  basis  the 
little  plaque  is  gradually  built  up  by  coiling.  The  general 
shape  and  plan  of  the  basket  must  necessarily  be  carried  in 


39° 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


mind,  for  there  is  no  skeleton  to  serve  as  a  guide.  Infinite  care 
must  therefore  be  exercised,  not  only  in  preserving  the  sym- 
metry of  shape,  but  also  of  the  designs  which  are  worked  in 
with  the  black  and  white  strands.  It  requires  many  months, 
sometimes  years,  of  leisure  work  to  complete  a  first-class  bas- 


FIG.  165. 
TINY  COILED  BASKET. 

Porno  Indians. 
Collected  by  C.  P.  Wilcomb. 


ket.     Some  of  the  very  best  are  more  or  less  individual  in 
their  shape  and  pattern.     (Chesnut.) 

Fig.  165  is  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Porno  Indians  (Kulanapan 
family)  in  a  style  of  sewing  called  Bamshibu.  The  founda- 
tion consists  of  three  stems  or  rods.  The  stitches  pass  over 
the  foundation  and  interlock  with  those  underneath,  giving 


FIG.  166. 
TINY  COILED    BASKET. 

Porno  Indians. 
Collected  by  C.  P.  Wilcomb. 

a  ribbed  appearance  to  the  fabric.  This  tiny  object  is  a  little 
over  one-half  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  passes  easily  through 
a  lady's  finger  ring.  In  the  foundation,  the  uniform  width 
of  the  coil  and  of  the  stitches,  and  the  neatness  of  the  sewing, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  charming  piece  of  Indian 
handiwork. 

Fig.  1 66  is  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Porno  Indians  in  a  style 
of  weaving  called  Tsai,  in  which  a  single  rod  is  used  for  the 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


391 


foundation,  the  stitches  passing  both  over  the  rod  of  the 
course  in  progress  and  under  the  rod  of  the  foundation  of  the 
course  beneath.  These  small  pieces  represent  fairly  the  best 
Porno  workmanship. 

These  two  baskets  are  in  the  collection  of  C.  P.  Wilcomb, 
curator  of  the  Golden  Gate  Park  Museum,  San  Francisco, 
California,  and  were  made  under  his  supervision. 

Fig.  167  is  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Hoochnom  Indians, 
Yukian  family.  It  is  made  in  a  style  of  coiled  weaving  called 


FIG.  167. 
COILED  BASKET. 

Hoochnom  Indians,  California. 
Cat.  No.  21,371   U.S.N.M      Collected  by  Stephen  Powers. 

rod  and  welt.  In  this  method  one  or  two  small  rods  or  stems 
of  uniform  thickness  constitute  the  body  or  foundation  of 
the  coil.  •  Over  this  is  laid  a  thin  filament  or  strip  of  material, 
and  the  stitches  of  each  coil  pass  over  the  foundation,  under 
the  splint,  and  interlock.  The  work  of  the  Hoochnom  Indians 
is  of  excellent  character,  the  coils  being  of  about  the  same 
width,  and  the  number  of  stitches  to  the  inch  uniform.  In 
the  example  here  shown,  the  coils  are  one-eighth  of  an  inch  in 
diameter,  and  there  are  twenty  stitches  to  the  inch.  The 


392 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


FIG.  168. 
DETAIL  OP  FIG.  167. 


ornamentation  appears  to  be  the  usual  California  combina- 
tion of  mountain  and  coil  plume.  The  use  of  light  and  dark 
filaments  and  the  alternation  of  triangles  and  rectangles  on 
the  two  sides  of  the  open  space  form  a  very  attractive  orna- 
ment. The  use  of  shell  disks  improves  the  appearance  of 

the  object.  Feathers  are  also 
employed  on  some  specimens 
from  this  locality. 

A  square  inch  shown  in 
fig.  1 68  illustrates  more 
definitely  the  description  here 
given. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue 
No.  21,371  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum,  was 
procured  in  Eel  River,  Cali- 
fornia, by  Stephen  Powers. 

Leaving  the  West  Coast 
peoples,  the  next  group  of  basketmakers  will  be  found 
in  the  Oregon  tribes  belonging  to  the  Lutuamian  family, 
namely,  the  Klamath  and  Modocs,  and  the  Shastas,  also 
various  bands  of  Wintun  belonging  to  the  Copehan 
family.  The  basketwork  of  this  middle  region  is  largely 
twined  work  with  overlaying.  The  designs  have  been 
studied  by  Roland  B.  Dixon,  and  will  be  found  illustrated 
in  Plates  18  to  24  in  his  paper  on  the  basket  designs 
of  northern  California.*  In  the  work  here  mentioned 
it  is  interesting  to  find  that  the  movement  has  been 
eastward,  for  quite  a  number  of  these  specimens  figured 
as  Maidu  are  very  surely  made  under  the  influence  of  tribes 
here  mentioned. 

The  Klamath  Indians  have  their  home  upon  the  Little 
and  Upper  Klamath  Lake,  Klamath  Marsh,  and  Sprague 
River,  Oregon.  Their  name  in  their  own  language  is  E-ukskik- 

*  Bulletin  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  XVII,  pp.  1-32. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  393 

ni  (Klamath  Lake  people).     The  Modoc  are  termed  by  the 
Klamath,  Modokni  (southern  people).* 

Fig.  169  is  a  twined  flexible  basket  of  the  Klamath  Indians. 
The  body  is  in  plain  twined  weaving;  the  three  elevated  bands 
on  the  outside  are  in  three-ply  twined  weaving,  the  effect 
being  that  of  hoops  placed  on  wooden  vessels  for  the  purpose 


FIG.  169. 
TWINED  BASKET  BOWL. 

Klamath  Indians,  Oregon. 
Cat.  No.  24,124,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  L.  S.  Dyar. 

of  strengthening  them,  and  is  very  pleasing.  By  choosing 
straws  or  stems  of  different  plants  for  these  three-ply  bands 
the  artistic  impression  is  heightened.  By  twining  dark  and 
light  coloured  straws  in  the  texture,  and  by  varying  the 
number  of  monochrome  or  dichrome  twines,  charming  effects 
in  endless  variety  may  be  produced. 

*  J.  W.  Powell,  Indian  Linguistic  Families,  Seventh  Annual  Report  of 
the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  1891,  pp.  1-142. 


394  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

A  square  inch  shown  in  fig.  170  makes  clear  the  manner 
in  which  the  plain  twined  and  three  ply  twine  may  be  com- 
bined, and  also  that  of  using  different  coloured  materials.  The 
rows  in  both  cases,  however,  are  monochrome.  If  the  alter- 
nate meshes  were  dark  and  light,  the  beauty  would  be  en- 
hanced. The  using  of  dichrome  twine  is  rather  limited  to 
this  particular  area — northern  California  and  southern  Oregon. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  24,124  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  procured  in  Oregon  by  L.  S.  Dyar. 

The  following  names  for  baskets  were  collected  from  the 
Hot  Spring  Valley  Indians,  Modoc  County,  California. 

INDIAN  NAME  BASKETWORK 

Doch  jam'  a Papoose  basket. 

Po  lu'  lu Boat- shaped,  used  to  hold  trinkets  and  small 

articles. 

Ba  po'  ka Storage  basket,  also  used  for  cooking;  indeed, 

applied  to  any  basket  where  the  top  curves 
in  toward  the  center. 

Shute'  pa Soft  plaque  used  for  gambling  and  winnowing. 

Ta  w  y'a Hard  plaque  used  for  gambling  and  winnow- 
ing. 

Clowa' Coarse  basket  with  hole  in  bottom  for  grind- 
ing meal. 

De  le'  ma  che Cone-shaped  burden  basket. 

Shu'  wa Squaw's  cap. 

Da  lu'  ti  a Coiled  weave.  A  coiled  weave  storage  basket 

is  called  dalutia  bapoka  and  is  greatly 
prized,  also  the  plaques  in  dalutia  weave. 

Plate  174  represents  two  Klamath  Indian  baskets  in  the 
collection  of  Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam.  The  interesting  feature 
in  them  is  that  the  entire  structure  is  in  three-strand  twined 
work.  The  border  resembles  closely  one  of  the  simplest 
among  the  Tlinkits,  namely,  the  warp  strands  are  turned 
down  and  held  in  place  by  a  row  of  twined  weaving.  All 
the  Indians  of  this  area  practise  the  three- strand  work,  but 
do  not  cover  the  whole  basket  with  it  This  weave  is  reserved 


Plate  174.     See  page  394 

THREE  STRAND  TWINED  BASKETS,  KLAMATH   INDIANS, 
OREGON 

Collection  of  C.  Hart  Merriam 


.:,  m  ^[7oiJE^Oj^a 


Plate  175.    See  page  395 

PIT  RIVER  TWINED  BASKETS 

Decorations  in  overlaying  ;  shows  wolf's  eye,  lizard's  foot,  and  flying  geese  designs 
Collected  by  L.  Stone  and  H.  F.  Listen 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY 


395 


for  strengthening  weak  places  and  for  ornament.     It  has  the 
disadvantage  of  being  wasteful  of  material. 

South  of  the  Klamath  and  Modoc  tribes,  and  closely  asso- 
ciated with  them,  live  the  Shasta  Indians  (Sastean  family, 
formerly  on  the  Klamath  River  from  Bogus  Creek  to  Scott 
River;  on  the  Shasta  River,  Little  Shasta  and  Yuka  Creek; 
and  in  Scott  Valley,  to  which  has  been  added  the  Upper 
Salmon  and  a  part  of  Rogue  River  in  Oregon),  Stephen 
Powers  commends  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  the 
Shasta  women.  With  their 
basket  hats  fitting  tight  to 
their  round  heads  and  walking 
with  a  grenadier  stride,  they 
present  quite  an  Amazonian 
appearance.*  The  specimens 
of  Shasta  Indian  baskets  in 
the  United  States  National 
Museum  are  not  to  be  dis- 
tinguished  fundamentally 
from  those  just  described. 
They  are  in  twined  weaving 
with  overlaying  in  straw.  Their  special  marks  are  in  the 
designs  or  symbols.! 

Plate  175,  top  figure,  represents  a  twined  basket  of  the 
Pit  River  Indians.  In  Dixon's  paper  precisely  the  same  sym- 

*  Powers,  Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology,  III,  chapter 
XXVI. 

t  Shastas,  Rogue  Rivers,  and  Calapooia  tribes  on  Grand  Ronde  and  Siletz 
Reservations.  Oregon,  make  excellent  openwork  twined  baskets  from  hazel 
(Corylus  californica)  sticks  cut  in  May,  peeled.  Those  cut  in  autumn  are 
toasted,  tnen  soaked  and  peeled.  Charming  effects  are  produced  m  the 
seasoning  of  the  wood.  Rarely  stems  dyed  black  by  soaking  them  in  mud 
are  used  in  weaving.  Besides  the  old-time  plaques,  baby  frames,  and  conical 
burden  baskets,  the  latest  willow  ware  is  being  freely  imitated  in  hazel  for 
all  domestic  and  industrial  uses.— MRS-  HARRIET  McARTHUR.  (See  Plata 
172.) 


FIG.  170. 
DETAIL  OF  FIG.  169 


396  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

bols  are  seen  on  a  basket  labelled  Yanan  (Plate  25).  The 
warp  and  weft  on  the  bottom  are  of  some  kind  of  rush.  The 
weft  on  the  body  is  in  stems  of  the  squaw-grass.  There  are 
twelve  twists  and  twenty  rows  of  twined  weaving  to  the  inch. 
The  colour  of  the  body  is  a  beautiful  old  gold  produced  by  age. 
The  ornamentation  is  in  three  sets  of  three  rhombs,  each  done 
in  black  material — perhaps  fern  stems.  Crosses  and  diamond 
patterns  are  employed  to  decorate  the  centers.  The  margin 
is  formed  by  braiding  down  the  unused  warp  stems.  Height 
is  3^  inches;  diameter,  5^  inches.  Catalogue  No.  19,283. 
Collected  by  Livingston  Stone. 

The  middle  figure  is  said  to  have  been  made  by  the  Pit 
River  Indians,  the  warp  and  bottom  being  in  soft  rushes. 
The  weft  of  the  body  is  in  strips  of  rushes  over  which  thin 
filaments  of  squaw-grass  have  been  wound.  The  delicate  fig- 
ures are  in  black  fern  stems.  Design:  lizard's  feet,  three  in 
number,  with  festoons  of  short  lines  between.  The  border  is 
formed  by  braiding  down  the  ends  of  the  warp  and  holding 
them  in  place  by  a  row  of  twined  weaving.  This  is  a  very 
common  method  of  treatment  throughout  this  country.  Its 
height  is  3  inches  and  diameter  5^  inches.  Catalogue  No. 
204,910,  United  States  National  Museum.  Collected  by 
Harry  F.  Listen. 

The  lower  figure  represents  a  basket  from  the  McCloud 
River  Indians,  Copehan  family.  The  warp  is  in  small  rods, 
perhaps  of  hazel.  The  weft  is  in  twisted  root  of  dark  brown 
colour.  The  first  few  rows  of  twining,  and  here  and  there 
another  row  around  the  bottom,  are  in  three-strand,  the  rest 
in  double  twining.  The  body  is  in  the  same  brown  material 
wrapped  with  squaw-grass,  the  figures  showing  on  both  sides. 
The  ornamentation  consists  of  four  rows  of  double  rhombs 
in  black  fern  and  one  single  row.  Around  the  bottom  is  a 
double  row  in  two  colours.  The  border  is  finished  in  one  row 
of  three-strand  twined  weaving,  the  ends  of  the  warp  showing. 
Its  height  is  4^  inches  and  its  diameter  5  inches.  Catalogue 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  397 

No.   19,349,  United  States  National  Museum.     Collected  by 
Livingston  Stone. 

Fig.  171  is  a  carrying  basket  of  the  McCloud  River  Indians, 
Copehan  family.  The  tribes  of  this  family  are  described  by 
Powers  under  the  general  name  of  Wintun.  Those  living  on 
the  McCloud  Fork  are  named  Winnemen,  the  meaning  of 
which  term  is  North  River.  The  similarity  of  the  McCloud 


FIG.  171. 

CARRYING    BASKET. 
McCloud  River  Indians,  California. 
Cat.  No.  19,290,  U.S.N.M.     Collected  by  Livingston  Stone. 

River  basketry  with  that  of  the  Pit  River  people  will  be  appar- 
ent. The  technic,  poorly  shown,  is  in  twined  weaving  with 
a  foundation  of  stems.  The  noticeable  feature  is  the  over- 
laying of  the  filaments  with  grass  stems  or  fern  stems  to  pro- 
duce the  ornamentation.  The  strength  of  the  basket  is  in 
the  weaving.  The  bottom  is  cup-shaped,  and  for  three  or 
four  inches  is  in  three-strand  twined  weaving.  The  rest  of 
the  workmanship  is  in  the  ordinary  two-strand  twine.  In 
order  to  strengthen  the  basket,  a  coil  of  rods  is  sewed  around 


398  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

the  bottom  for  about  a  foot.  The  border  is  a  strong  hoop 
attached  to  the  warp  stems  by  bending  down  the  latter  and 
sewing  them  in  place  with  splints,  forming  a  single  row  of 
coiled  work.  The  overlaying  passes  to  the  inside,  so  that  the 
figures  are  the  same  without  and  within  the  basket.  On  the 
body,  the  rhomboid  figures  forming  triangular  ornaments  are 
named  in  Mr.  Dixon's  paper,  "leaves  strung  along." 

Plate  176,  Catalogue  Nos.  19,297  and  19,281  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum,  are  labelled  McCloud  River  Indian 
baskets.  They  were  collected  by  the  superintendent  of  the 
United  States  fish-hatching  establishment  in  northern  Cali- 
fornia many  years  ago,  and  doubtless  were  procured  from 
the  McCloud  River  Indians. 

The  upper  figure  is  an  example  of  two-coloured  design  in 
plain  twined  weaving  produced  by  simply  hiding  every  alter- 
nate twist  of  the  weft  strands.  The  lower  figure  is  made  in 
the  same  fashion  with  broken  bands  in  two  colours,  brown 
and  yellow,  but  the  border  is  finished  off  by  bending  down 
the  warp  stems  and  sewing  with  thread. 

Plates  177-178  show  the  work  of  the  Hat  Creek  Indians, 
Pakamalli,  who  live  on  Hat  Creek,  a  branch  of  Pit  River  in 
northeastern  California.  They  belong  to  the  Palaihnihan 
family,  which  Mr.  Gatschet  believes  to  be  related  to  the 
Sastean  tribes.  Dixon  (1902)  places  the  basketry  of  these 
tribes  in  his  northeastern  group  of  California  tribes  associated 
with  the  Klamath  and  Modoc  (Lutuamian),  Shastas  (Sastean), 
Pit  Rivers  (Palaihnihan),  Yana  (Yanan),  Wintun  (Copehan), 
and  Maidu  (Pujunan).  Powers*  characterises  the  Hat  Creek 
Indians  as  the  most  warlike  in  all  the  Pit  River  Basin,  and 
the  one  most  dreaded  by  the  timid  aborigines  of  the  Sacra- 
mento Valley.  These  specimens  are  in  the  collection  of  H.  E. 
Williams. 

The  eastern  portion  of  northern  California,  as  before  men- 
tioned, is  largely  divided  between  the  Palaihnihan,  Yanan, 

*  Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology,  III,  1877,  p.  274. 


abit  gnor// 


the  bottom  fir  »b-  '  IIOOP 

attached  t«  ^nd 

gpnm 

the 

.is  are 
Ur 


Plate  176.     See  page  jg8 

McCLOUD    (WlNTUN)    TWINED    BASKETS 

Showing  how  the  patterns  may  be  concealed  or  revealed  at  pleasure  on  the  wrong  side 
Collected  by  Livingston  Stone 


- 

•  'iong    to   the    Palftihnihan 

family,    which    Mr.    (?.  ^    (<>   be   related   to   the 

Sastean  tribes.     Dixon  (1902.)  pUrcs  the  basketry  of  these 
tribes  in  his  northeastern  gr  <./i     •  -ites  associated 

with  the  Klamath  and  Moioc  (Lutuar  .astas  (Saste, 

Pit  Rivers  (Palaihnihan),  Yana  C\r*mm)t  Wintun  (Copehan), 
and  Maidu  (Pujunan).  Powers*  characterises  the  Hat  Creek 
Indians  as  the  most  warlike  in  all  the  Pit  River  Basin,  and 
the  one  most  dreaded  by  the  timid  aborigines  of  the  Sa< 
mento  Valley.  These  specimens  are  in  the  collection  of  H.  E. 
Williams. 

The  eastern  portion  of  northern  California, 
tioned,  is  largely  divided  between  thr  I 

*  Contributions  to  North  American  '•'  t>  •• 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  399 

and  Pujunan  linguistic  families.  It  might  be  easily  supposed 
by  one  who  had  no  knowledge  on  the  subject  whatever  that 
the  coiled  basketry  of  the  interior  basin  would  obtrude  itself 
here,  and  either  push  backward  the  tribes  making  twined  work, 
or  at  least  the  latter  would  be  forced  to  a  very  subordinate 
position.  Dr.  Roland  B.  Dixon  has  published  in  the  American 
Anthropologist,  but  more  extensively  in  the  Bulletin  of  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,*  the  result  of  accurate 
studies  in  the  basketry  of  the  eastern  tribes.  The  most  exten- 
sive researches  of  Dr.  Dixon  are  on  the  basketry  of  the  Maidu 
Indians,  described  by  Powers.  On  Powell's  linguistic  map 
these  Indians  are  assigned  to  the  Pujunan  family.  Their 
country  lies  east  of  the  Sacramento  River,  and  extends  as  far 
as  the  Nevada  line,  stretching  north  and  south  from  the  south- 
ern line  of  Lassen  and  Tehama  counties  to  the  Consumne  River. 
A  number  of  examples  of  Maidu  basketry  have  already  been 
described,  and  illustrated  in  Plates  56  and  57.  The  speci- 
mens are  in  the  United  States  National  Museum. 

The  body  is  either  in  splints  of  willow  or  other  wood  and 
a  species  of  root.  At  the  time  of  this  writing,  Mr.  Coville 
was  not  quite  sure  as  to  the  species  employed.  The  designs 
on  the  body  of  the  basket  are  in  the  splints  of  Cercis  occidentalis, 
the  bark  and  young  shoots  remaining  in  place.  An  inspec- 
tion of  a  number  of  Maidu  baskets  together  leaves  the  impres- 
sion of  distinct  individuality.  They  belong  to  the  three-rod 
variety  of  coiled  weaving,  and  the  sewing  passes  over  the 
foundation,  under  one  of  the  rods  of  the  foundation  beneath, 
the  stitches  interlocking.  Frequently  on  the  inside  they  split, 
which  enables  the  sewer  to  give  each  stitch  on  the  outer  sur- 
face a  vertical  position.  The  material  used  in  the  sewing  is 
hard,  and  is  not  driven  home  tight,  each  stitch  being  wide 
below  and  narrow  above.  After  a  study  of  one  of  these  speci- 
mens, its  colours  and  patterns,  the  investigator  will  have  no 
trouble  afterward  in  identifying  a  Maidu  basket. 

*  Vol.  XVII,  pp.  1-32. 


400  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Dr.  Dixon,  who  has  given  most  attention  to  the  lore  in 
Maidu  baskets,  divides  the  symbols  into  three  classes,  namely, 
natural  designs,  plant  designs,  and  those  representing  natural 
or  artificial  objects.  His  plates  i  to  17  are  devoted  exclu- 
sively to  Maidu  basketry.  Among  them  will  be  seen  a  few 
in  twined  weaving,  principally  conical  burden  baskets.  A 
comparison  of  these  among  themselves,  and  also  those  of  the 
Pit  River  Indians  and  tribes  living  in  the  Sacramento  Valley, 
indicate  acculturation  of  some  kind,  borrowing  ideas,  or  may- 
be women,  ideas,  and  all.  A  number  of  Maidu  baskets  in  the 
United  States  National  Museum  were  collected  by  W.  H. 
Holmes. 

A  suggestion  might  be  made  in  this  connection  that  the 
so-called  feather  design  on  the  Dixon  baskets*  may  be  those 
on  arrows,  which  in  some  California  tribes  are  notched.  This 
is  only  a  suggestion.  One  of  Dixon's  most  intricate  feather 
patterns  has  narrow  lines  between,  resembling  the  letter  H, 
which  might  be  either  the  rib  of  the  feathers  or  the  owner's 
mark  on  the  shaftment  of  the  arrow.  The  association  of  this 
notched  half -feather  design  with  the  symbol  for  arrow  points 
would  be  in  harmony  with  this  view.  No  other  artificial 
object  enters  so  profoundly  into  Indian  art,  gaming,  lore,  and 
ceremony. 

On  the  map  of  California,  covering  a  small  spot  at  the  angle 
of  the  eastern  border,  are  the  Washo  Indians  (Washoan  fam- 
ily). They  extend  into  the  parts  of  Nevada  adjoining,  occu- 
pying the  mountain  region  in  the  extreme  western  portion 
of  the  State  about  Washoe  and  Tahoe  lakes  and  the  towns 
of  Carson  and  Virginia  City.  They  formerly  extended  far- 
ther east  and  south,  but  were  .driven  back  by  the  Paiute, 
who  conquered  them  and  reduced  them  to  complete  subjec- 
tion. Their  basketry  is  the  same  general  type  as  the  Maidu, 
just  north,  but  in  execution  it  is  far  above.  The  material 
is  willow  splint,  Tah-buk;  the  brown  or  reddish  tint  is  that 

*  American  Anthropologist,  April- June,  1900,  pp.  266-276. 


TSX2A3 

ow  zealHuj^l  bnj;  noilElnamEmo  -^Jnifch  10) 
nozbuH  .W  .1  bciB  bssM  .3  yd  baJ^sIIo' 


L)r     l> 


may- 

Plate  179.    See  page  401 

WASHOE  COILED  BASKET  BOWLS 

Remarkable  for  dainty  ornamentation  and  faultless  workmanship 
Collected  by  E.  Mead  and  J.  W.  Hudson 


cere? 5V,.  v 

if 

,  -.- 

of  Cars  '.ey  formerly  t" 

ihw  cast  a  i  back  bv  -ute, 

<"  -TD    '        <"^i 

Thi.-n   ' 

just  north,  b  far  above.     The  material 

is  willow  spHnt,  T..  'wn  or  reddish  ;  hat 

*  American  Anthropoiog»*t,  April-June,  1900,  pp.  266-976. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  401 

of  the  bark  of  the  mountain  birch  (Cercis  occidentalis) ,  Tag- 
goo-let,  and  the  black  is  from  the  root  of  a  mountain  brake 
(Pteridium  aquilinum),  mes-sa-wag-a-see,  all  of  lasting  quality, 
and  they  acquire  with  age  a  richness  that  makes  them  incom- 
parable. The  sewing  is  faultless.  Stitch  after  stitch,  over 
and  over,  increases  in  width  and  length  with  the  swelling  and 
shrinking  of  the  basket,  like  a  harmony  in  music.  The  form 
of  the  specimen  is  charming,  and  .the  ornamentation  ideal. 
The  recognition  of  worth  in  the  Washo  basketmaker  is  encour- 
aging, for  the  price  of  a  few  pieces  reaches  into  thousands  of 
dollars.  The  author  heartily  acknowledges  the  aid  of  Mrs. 
A.  Cohn,  of  Carson  City,  Nevada,  for  information  about  the 
Washos  and  for  photographs. 

The  tiny  Washo  offering  or  gift  basket,  when  used  to  pro- 
pitiate the  harvest  spirit,  is  filled  with  choicest  grain  or  seeds 
or  acorns  from  the  last  crop,  to  insure  a  future  good  harvest. 
One  or  two  of  the  large  storing  or  household  baskets  will  hold 
the  winter  supply  of  grain  or  nuts.  The  flat  cradles  are  for 
the  papooses.  If  the  child's  father  is  a  famous  brave  or  chief, 
the  basket  is  covered  with  buckskin  and  gaily  decorated  with 
beads,  trinkets,  tasselled  fringes,  or  feathers.  The  ornamen- 
tation of  the  little  sheltering  cover  for  the  head  tells  the  sex 
of  the  occupant.* 

Plate  179  represents  three  basket  bowls  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum  labelled  Washo.  They  all  show  the 
characteristics  of  uniformity  and  plain  ornamentation  referred 
to.  The  lowest  in  the  series  has  also  a  margin  of  feather-work 
which  allies  it  with  the  type  of  the  tribes  farther  west.  Cata- 
logue Nos.  204,846,  36,244,  35,435,  United  States  National 
Museum. 

Plate  1 80  is -one  of  the  best  specimens  in  Mrs.  A.  Cohn's 
collection.  The  symbol  on  the  surface  is  a  series  of  points 
meaning  "clear  skies,  good  weather."  Mrs.  Cohn  finds  varia- 
tions in  these,  the  number  of  points  ranging  from  three  to 

*  Clara  MacNaughton,  Out  West,  XVIII,  1903,  p.  438. 


402  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

seven.  In  some  examples  they  are  contiguous;  in  others, 
separated  by  narrow  spaces. 

Plate  181  is  a  picture  of  Datsolallee,  the  maker  of  the  finest 
specimens  of  Washo  basketry.  She  is  holding  in  her  left  hand 
the  bowed  stick  in  the  shape  of  a  racquet,  with  which  hot 
stones  are  stirred  about  in  the  basket  of  mush,  while  cooking. 
The  symbols  shown  on  the  various  baskets  at  her  feet  repre- 
sent men,  women,  snakes,  arrows,  wind,  weather  symptoms, 
morning,  and  migrating. 

Plate  182,  upper  figure,  shows  a  basket  bowl  of  the  Washo 
Indians,  collected  by  Eugene  Mead.  The  foundation  is  the 
three-rod  style  in  willow.  The  sewing  is  done  in  splints  of  the 
same  material.  The  ornamentation  on  the  bottom  is  a  many- 
pointed  star  in  brown  cercis.  On  the  body  there  are  three 
circles  made  up  of  isosceles  triangles  in  the  same.  Two  of 
the  rows  on  the  body  of  the  basket  are  so  arranged  as  to  have 
a  narrow  belt  of  white  between  them,  the  points  of  one  being 
downward  and  the  other  upward.  This  form  of  ornamenta- 
tation  is  suggestive  of  the  patterns  on  the  sewed  coils  of  the 
Navaho  basket  bowls.  The  border  is  plain  coiled  sewing. 
Its  diameter  is  8f  inches,  and  height  3^  inches. 

Plate  182,  lower  figure,  is  a  basket  bowl,  Catalogue  No. 
204,852,  United  States  National  Museum,  coiled  work  from 
Inyo  County,  California,  tribe  not  positively  known.  There 
are  four  sets  of  ornamentation  on  the  side  in  step  pattern  in 
threes,  done  in  sewing  splints  dyed  black.  The  most  interest- 
ing feature  of  the  basket  is  the  border,  which  is  in  false  braid, 
made  of  a  single  splint  wrapped  over  the  upper  foundation, 
forward,  under,  and  back,  over  again  and  down  beneath  the 
two  foundation  rows,  making  a  figure  8. 

The  southern  portion  of  the  Oregon-California  basket  area 
is  bounded  on  the  west  by  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  there  was 
little  encouragement  to  venture  beyond  the  shore  line  except 
in  San  Francisco  Bay  and  around  the  Santa  Barbara  Islands. 
On  the  north  of  it  are  the  Maidu,  Wintun,  and  the  Yuki 


Plate  181.     See  page  402 

DATSOLALEE,  THE  WASHOE  BASKET-MAKER,  NEVADA 

Photograph  from  Mrs.  A.  Cohn 


Plate  182.    See  page  402 

EASTERN  CALIFORNIAN  COILED  BASKETS 

Unclassed,  bearing  Washoe  motifs 
Collected  by  Eugene  Mead 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  403 

tribes.  On  the  south,  and  forming  a  part  of  the  subarea  itself, 
are  the  Missions,  some  of  which  belong  to  the  Yuman  family, 
the  southern  boundary  of  the  area.  The  great  Shoshonean 
family  has  pushed  across  the  drainage  of  the  interior  basin 
to  the  coast  of  Santa  Barbara.  This  southern  region  is  a 
long  rectangle  inclined  toward  the  west.  Its  axis  would  be 
a  meridian  through  diagonal  corners.  The  eastern  portion 
is  Shoshonean  territory.  The  western  portion  belongs  to  the 
following  linguistic  families:  Moquelumnan,  Costanoan, 
Mariposan,  Esselenan,  Salinan,  and  Chumashan.  Along  the 
median  line  of  this  subarea  are  Mono,  Fresno,  Inyo,  Tulare, 
and  Kern  counties — another  basketry  Caucasus  or  Babel. 
(See  fig.  163.) 

Those  who  have  made  collections  from  this  part  of  Cali- 
fornia will  bear  witness  that  the  exchanging  of  baskets  and  of 
women  who  make  baskets  from  tribe  to  tribe  has  rendered 
it  almost  impossible  to  identify  forms  ethnically.  Here 
blood  and  speech  and  industry  are  apt  to  be  confounded.  At 
least,  it  is  too  early  in  the  investigation  to  be  positive  on  the 
subject. 

Another  difficulty  arises  in  this  study  from  the  fact  that 
language  groups,  tribal  names,  and  county  names  are  also 
mixed  up.  For  instance,  a  basket  may  be  called  Tulare 
because  it  was  purchased  in  that  county  of  California,  having 
no  reference  to  the  Indian  tribe.  A  specimen  made  by  the 
same  woman  will  bear  the  name  of  the  tribe  of  which  she  is 
a  member.  Still  another  one  of  her  productions  might  be 
called  from  the  group  of  languages  to  which  her  own 
belongs.  At  present,  the  confusion  extends  beyond  form 
and  design  to  the  substances  and  technical  processes. 
The  author  acknowledges  his  obligations  to  E.  L.  McLeod, 
of  Bakersfield;  C.  P.  Wilcomb,  of  San  Francisco;  and 
Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam,  of  Washington,  for  the  information 
here  given.  Each  of  these  has  given  most  careful 
study  to  this  cosmopolitan  basket  region.  Dr.  Merriam  has 


404  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

devoted  special  attention  to  the  plants  used  and  to  the 
ethnic  determination.* 

Of  this  ware,  Dr.  Merriam  says  that  most  of  the  coiled 
baskets  made  by  the  Indians  inhabiting  the  lower  slopes  of 
the  Sierra  from  Fresno  River  south  to  the  Kern  are  celebrated 
for  excellence  of  workmanship,  beauty  of  form,  elegance  of 
design,  and  richness  of  material,  which  differ  in  tone  and  tex- 
ture from  that  used  by  the  tribes  north  and  south  of  the  region 
indicated.  When  fresh,  its  colour  is  brownish  buff;  with  age 
it  becomes  darker  and  richer.  By  careful  selection  a  hand- 
some dappled  effect  is  produced.  It  is  made  from  the  root  of 
a  marsh  plant  which  the  Indians  travel  long  distances  to  pro- 
cure, identified  by  Miss  Alice  Eastwood,  botanist  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Academy  of  Sciences,  as  Cladium  mariscus.  The  founda- 
tion consists  of  a  bundle  of  stems  of  a  yellow  grass,  Epicampes 
rigens.  The  black  in  the  design  is  the  root  of  the  "bracken" 
or  "brake  fern,"  Pteridium  aquilinum.  The  red  is  usually 
split  branches  of  the  redbud,  Cercis  occidentalis,  with  the  bark 
on,  gathered  after  the  fall  rains,  when  the  bark  is  red.  The 
tribes  making  the  Cladium  baskets  are  the  Nims,  Chukchansis, 
Cocahebas,  Wuksatches,  Wikchumnis,  Tulares,  and  perhaps 
one  or  two  others.  Besides  these,  the  root  is  sometimes  used 
by  certain  squaws  of  the  Muwa  tribe  living  north  of  the  Fresno 
and  by  the  Pakanepull  and  Newooah  tribes  living  south  of 
the  Kern ;  but  among  these  its  use  is  exceptional. 

Another  material  which  has  proven  a  stumbling  block  to 
collectors  is  the  red  of  the  design  in  the  handsome  baskets 
made  by  the  Kern  Valley,  Newooah  and  Panamint  Shoshone 
Indians.  This  material  is  often  called  cactus  root.  It  is  the 
unpeeled  root  of  the  tree  yucca  (Yucca  arborescens) ,  which 
grows  in  the  higher  parts  of  the  Mohave  Desert,  pushes  over 
Walker  Pass,  and  reaches  down  into  the  upper  part  of  the 
valley  of  South  Fork  of  the  Kern.  The  so-called  Tejon  Indians 


*  It  is  too  early  to  complete  a  plant  synonymy  for  the  Inyo-Kern  and 
ire  basketry.     The  list  of  Coville  (pp.  19  to  4 
owing  paragraphs  from  Merriam  will  be  helpful. 


Tulare  basketry.     The  list  of  Coville  (pp.  19  to  43  of  this  work)  and  the  fol- 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  40$ 

obtain  it  in  Antelope  Valley,  at  the  extreme  west  end  of  the 
Mohave  Desert.  The  yucca  root  varies  considerably  in  depth 
of  colour,  so  that  by  careful  selection  some  of  the  Indian  women 
produce  beautiful  shaded  effects  and  definite  pattern  contrasts. 

Some  of  the  Panamint  Shoshones  inhabiting  the  desolate 
desert  region  between  Owens  Lake  and  Death  Valley  use, 
either  in  combination  with  the  yucca  root  or  independently, 
the  bright -red  shafts  of  the  wing  and  tail  feathers  of  a  wood- 
pecker— the  red-shafted  flicker,  Colaptes  cafer  collaris.  These 
same  Indians  use  two  widely  different  materials  for  their 
black  designs — the  split  seed  pods  of  the  devil's  horn,  Mar- 
tynia,  and  the  root  of  a  marsh  bulrush,  Scirpus.  The  Mar- 
tynia  is  a  relatively  coarse  material,  and  when  properly  selected 
yields  a  dead  black.  The  Scirpus  root  is  a  fine,  delicate  mate- 
rial, which,  by  burying  in  wet  ashes,  is  made  to  assume  sev- 
eral shades  or  tones,  from  blackish  brown  to  purplish  black, 
or  even  lustrous  black. 

In  parts  of  the  Colorado  Desert  in  southeastern  California 
the  Coahuilla  Indians  use  split  strands  from  the  leaf  of  the 
desert  palm  (Neowashingtonia  filamentosa)  as  a  surface  mate- 
rial for  their  coiled  baskets.  The  design  is  usually  black  cr 
orange-brown,  and  is  a  rush  (Juncus).* 

The  following  list  gives  the  families  of  the  tribes  in  Tulare, 
Kern,  and  Inyo  counties  using  the  plants  named  in  the 
first  part  of  this  description:  i.  Chukchancys  (Mariposan) ; 
2.  Cocahebas  (Shoshonean) ,  3.  Muwa  (Moquelumnan) ; 
4.  Newooah  (Shoshonean);  5.  Nims  (Shoshonean);  6. 
Pakanepull  (Shoshonean) ;  7.  Tulares  (part  of  Olamentke 
div.,  Moquelumnan) ;  8.  Wiktchumnes,  Wikchumni  (Mari- 
posan) ;  9.  Wuksatches,  Wiksachi  (Mariposan). 

The  elements  of  ornamentation  are  lines  direct  and  crooked, 
in  shapes  as  varied  as  the  margins  of  leaves,  and  they  might 
without  affectation  receive  the  same  names — dentate,  serrate, 

*  C.  Hart  Merriam,  Science,  May  23,  1903;  but  more  especially  of  June 
17,  1904,  where  this  most  difficult  ethnic  tangle  is  straightened  out. 


406  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

sinuous,  etc.  These  simple  lines  are  combined  in  parallels, 
herring-bone,  chevrons,  crenelations,  and  many  more  pat- 
terns. The  triangle,  the  rectangle,  the  rhomb,  and  the  poly- 
gon are  used  in  great  variety.  Out  of  these  elements  the 
designs  on  this  basketry  are  separate,  concentric,  or  radial. 

The  separate  designs  are,  after  all,  subservient  to  the  oth- 
ers. Very  little  of  this  ware  shows  entirely  free  and  scattered 
patterns.  The  plume  or  L-shape,  the  white  and  coloured  rec- 
tangles associated,  the  groups  of  marks  on  the  border,  and 
chiefly  the  rectangles  in  two  colours  with  hour-glass  middle 
are  most  common. 

Concentric  designs  are  narrow  or  wide  bands,  whose  mid- 
dle portion  is  decorated  with  crooked  lines  and  geometric 
figures  in  endless  variety  of  combinations.  Most  of  the  bands 
have  entire  margins,  but  projecting  margins  are  not  unknown. 
The  most  noteworthy  is  Merriam's  "butterfly  flight  design." 
(See  Plate  194.) 

The  radial  designs  are  straight  or  spiral.  The  composi- 
tion of  each  ray  is  a  study  in  itself.  But  a  glance  at  a  large 
number  of  baskets  from  this  central  region  shows  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  cuneate  motive.  These  truncated  wedges 
spring  out  of  a  central,  circular  pattern  and  widen  toward 
the  margin.  Their  surfaces  and  their  margins  are  seldom 
entire.  The  spiral  designs  are  also  frequently  wedge-shaped, 
but  the  manner  of  their  composition  is  of  the  greatest  interest. 
Lurking  in  them  all  is  the  stepped  motive  in  which  herring- 
bone or  jagged  lines  and  simple  geometric  figures  follow  one 
another  by  echelon.  This  on  a  roundish  surface  gives  spirals 
of  any  amount  of  curvature.  By  widening  and  lengthening 
the  rectangular  elements  the  wedge-shaped  interspaces  are 
filled  with  the  spiral  pattern,  and  the  whole  surface  is  covered 
with  a  single  design.  This  charming  decoration  is  peculiar 
to  the  Santa  Barbara  baskets.  (See  Plate  49.)  In  outward 
form,  the  baskets  of  the  area  here  considered  vary  from  round, 
flat  gambling  mats,  through  trays  and  bowls  of  various  depths 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  407 

and  hats  of  conical  shape,  to  narrow-mouthed  vases,  or  "  bottle- 
necks," as  they  are  called.  Some  of  these  are  low  and  broad 
and  closely  resemble  the  best  of  ancient  Arizona  pottery. 

The  basketry  of  the  Panamint  Indians  (Shoshonean)  liv- 
ing in  Death  Valley,  Inyo  County,  says  Coville,  is  made  by 
the  squaws  at  the  cost  of  a  great  deal  of  time,  care,  and  skill. 
The  materials  are  very  simple.  They  consist  of  the  year-old 
shoots  of  some  species  of  tough  willow,  splints  from  Salix 
lasiandra,  the  year-old  shoots  of  the  aromatic  sumac,  Rhus 
trilobata,  the  long,  black,  slender,  flexible  horns  on  the  mature 
pods  of  the  unicorn  plant,  Martynia  Louisiana,  locally  known 
as  devil  horns,  and  the  long,  red  roots  of  the  tree  yucca,  Yucca 
arborescens.  These  materials  give  three  types  of  colour — that 
of  the  willow  and  the  sumac,  the  black  of  the  devil  horns,  and 
the  red  of  the  yucca  roots.  This  last  material,  although  it 
has  a  strong  fiber  and  a  pretty  red  colour,  is  rarely  used,  for 
it  is  too  thick  to  pack  closely,  and  the  resulting  fabric  is  full 
of  interstices. 

Sumac  and  willow  are  prepared  for  use  in  the  same  way 
by  the  Panamint  Indians.  The  bark  is  removed  from  the  fresh 
shoots  by  biting  it  loose  at  the  end  and  tearing  it  off.  The 
woody  portion  is  scraped  to  remove  bud  protuberances  and 
other  inequalities  of  the  surface  and  is  then  allowed  to  dry. 
These  slender  stems  serve  as  foundation.  The  sewing-material 
is  prepared  from  the  same  plants.  A  squaw  selects  a  fresh 
shoot,  breaks  off  the  too  slender  upper  portion,  and  bites  one 
end  so  that  it  starts  to  split  into  three  nearly  equal  parts. 
Holding  one  of  these  in  her  teeth  and  one  in  either  hand,  she 
pulls  them  apart,  guiding  the  splitting  with  her  fingers  so  dex- 
terously that  the  whole  shoot  is  divided  into  three  equal,  even 
portions.  Taking  one  of  these,  by  a  similar  process  she  splits 
off  the  pith  and  the  adjacent  less  flexible  tissue  from  the  inner 
face  and  the  bark  from  the  outer,  leaving  a  pliant,  strong,  flat 
strip  of  young  willow  or  sumac  wood.  Both  stems  and  splints 
may  be  dried  and  kept  for  months,  and  probably  even  for  sev- 


408  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

eral  years,  but  before  being  used  they  are  always  soaked  in 
water. 

The  pack  baskets,  and  some,  at  least,  of  the  water  baskets, 
are  made  of  these  splints  and  rods  in  twined  work.  The 
women  begin  at  the  bottom  with  two  layers  of  rods  super- 
imposed and  fastened  by  their  middles  at  right  angles.  The 
free  ends  are  bent  upward,  and  in  and  out  between  them  the 
strands  are  woven,  new  warp  rods  being  inserted  as  the 
basket  widens.  An  attempt  at  ornamentation  is  frequently 
made  by  retaining  the  bark  on  some  of  the  strands  or  by  stain- 
ing them  and  by  slightly  varying  the  weave.  A  squaw  com- 
monly occupies  an  entire  month  constructing  one  such  basket. 

Starting  from  a  central  point  to  make  a  coiled  basket,  a 
bundle  of  two  or  three  grass  stems  and  one  very  slender  rod 
is  wrapped  with  a  willow  splint.  At  the  proper  point  the 
foundation  is  drawn  more  tightly,  so  that  the  remainder  of  the 
spiral  forms  the  sides  of  the  basket.  The  wall  has  the  thick- 
ness, therefore,  of  one  of  these  bundles,  and  is  composed  of  a 
continuous  ascending  spiral.  The  willow  rod  furnishes  a 
strong  hold  for  the  stitches,  and  the  punctures  are  made  with 
an  iron  awl.  When  such  an  instrument  can  not  be  obtained, 
an  admirable  equivalent  is  substituted  in  the  form  of  a  stout, 
horny  cactus  spine  from  the  devil's  pincushion,  Echinocactus 
polycephalus,  set  in  a  head  of  hard  pitch.  The  grass  stems, 
when  the  stitches  are  drawn  tightly,  make  a  perfect  packing, 
and  the  basket  when  finished  is  water-tight. 

The  pack  baskets  of  the  Panamint  Indians  have  the  form 
of  a  funnel,  from  i|  to  i\  feet  high  and  not  quite  so  broad. 
The  loaded  basket  is  held  against  the  back  between  the  shoul- 
ders, either  by  the  hands  grasping  its  rim,  or  by  leather  or 
rope  thongs  passed  around  the  forehead,  the  body  meanwhile 
bent  forward. 

The  plaques  are  small,  flat,  circular  pieces  of  closely  sewed 
coiled  work,  usually  9  to  12  inches  in  diameter.  They  are 
flexible,  and  sometimes  slightly  saucer-shaped,  and  are  used 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  409 

not  only  as  plates  and  pans,  but  also  as  substitutes  for  sieves. 
The  material  to  be  sifted,  composed  of  ground  seeds,  is  placed 
upon  the  plate  and  the  chaff  winnowed  out. 

The  pot  basket  of  the  Panamints  is  in  coiled  work,  and  has 
the  shape  of  a  rather  deep  bowl  with  curved  sides  and  a  deep 
bottom,  and  has  a  capacity  of  about  three  pints.  The  squaw 
uses  it  as  a  general  measure,  as  a  bowl  for  dry  food  and  for 
soup,  and  often,  when  in  the  sunshine,  as  a  hat.  Most  of 
their  starchy  food  is  roasted  dry  by  mixing  seeds,  before  they 
are  ground,  with  hot  coals  and  stirring  them  in  the  basket. 
This  process  is  still  largely  used. 

The  water  basket  has  a  capacity  of  two  or  three  gallons. 
Its  outline  is  that  of  an  urn  with  a  narrow  neck  and  a  rounded, 
conical  bottom.  The  entire  inner  surface,  and  frequently 
the  outside,  is  coated  with  pitch.  Woven  into  the  shoulder 
of  the  basket  on  one  side  are  two  loops  of  horsehair,  or  other 
strong  material,  to  which  is  attached  a  thong.  In  carrying, 
this  thong  is  passed  around  the  forehead,  while  the  basket  is 
rested  on  the  back  between  the  shoulders. 

All  the  Shoshonean  types  of  weaving,  all  their  forms  of 
baskets,  and  most  of  the  patterns  on  them,  are  ancient.  The 
canyon  walls  of  the  upper  tributaries  of  the  Colorado  are 
honeycombed  with  cliff  and  cave  dwellings.  From  them 
came  inexhaustible  treasures  of  basketwork.* 

In  the  collection  of  Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam  in  Washington 
City  there  are  most  excellent  examples  of  the  Panamint 
(Shoshonean)  Indian  basketwork  in  which  the  ornamenta- 
tion has  been  a  matter  of  especial  study.  Plate  183  illus- 
trates five  examples  from  Dr.  Merriam's  collection,  which  I 
am  allowed  here  to  reproduce.  Before  speaking  of  them,  it 
will  be  at  once  noticed  that  these  Indians,  whose  most  numer- 
ous kindred  are  in  the  Interior  Basin,  have  been  in  contact  with 
well-known  California  tribes  and  have  been  subjected  to  their 
influence.  (See  also  Plate  185.) 

*  See  F.  V.  Coville's  account  of  the  Panamint  Indians  of  Death  Valley, 
California,  American  Anthropologist,  V,  1892,  pp.  351-361. 


410  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Fig.  i  will  be  recognised  at  once  in  its  relationship  with  the 
Tulare  tribes.  The  ornamentation  consists  of  four  cycloidal 
radii  made  up  of  rectangles  in  black,  arranged  in  stepped  pat- 
terns. Each  one  of  these  rectangles  is  ornamented  with  two 
double  chevron  patterns,  called  hour-glass  designs  by  Dr. 
Dixon.  In  some  examples  the  colour  is  mixed  red  and  black. 
Collections  of  short  and  parallel  lines  on  the  border  termi- 
nate the  patterns. 

Fig.  2,  another  Panamint  bowl,  has  the  center  ornamented 
with  groups  of  small  rectangles  in  threes.  The  first  band  near 
the  bottom  has  for  decoration  a  design  which  resembles  a 
barbed  harpoon  head  with  unilateral  prongs.  The  principal 
band  on  the  body  is  decorated  with  a  series  of  rhombs  in  black, 
containing  white  and  black  designs  within.  In  some  of  the 
Calif ornian  eastern  tribes  this  design  represents  the  eye,  but 
until  the  symbol  is  surely  known,  denotive  names  are  better. 
The  border  is  decorated  with  groups  of  short  marks  in  threes. 

Fig.  3  is  a  bowl  with  plain  center,  excepting  a  short  owner's 
mark,  so-called,  and  on  the  body  are  two  bands,  each  one  deco- 
rated with  a  threefold  chevroned  pattern.  It  will  be  noted  that 
the  offsets  in  the  three  boundary  lines  of  the  designs  are  exactly 
in  line  with  the  finishing  off  at  the  upper  border.  This  feature 
is  often  mentioned  by  basket  collectors  among  other  tribes. 

Fig.  4  is  another  Panamint  bowl,  the  interior  decorated 
with  plain  rings  in  black.  From  the  bottom  project  four  equi- 
distant wedge-shaped  designs  decorated  on  the  surface  with 
rhombs  in  white.  On  the  border,  the  pattern  shown  in  fig. 
i  appears  rectangular  in  form,  with  eight  single  chevroned 
designs  on  the  surface.  One  of  the  patterns  is  abbreviated, 
and  between  the  two  wedge-shaped  designs  on  the  right  side 
of  the  figure  is  an  arrow  motive  which  may  represent  arrow- 
heads strung  or  the  feather  of  the  arrow  notched. 

Fig.  5  is  another  Panamint  bowl,  with  five  wedge-shaped 
designs  on  the  body,  proceeding  from  a  dark  ring  bordering 
the  bottom.  Each  design  has  outside  edges  bordered  in  white. 


vinaX  OMA 

nfirno  n't  ziuoloo  IBIUJBH  lo  oaiol  ori)  gniworig 
anaguH  bnB  noabuH  .W  .(.  yd  baJoaHoJ 


^  the 
>tdal 
pat- 

iffct  w  ornamented  with  two 
ass  designs   by  Dr. 

'.-•    i . 


within,     li 

M  r< 


Plate  184.     See  page  411 

TULARE   AND    KERN    BOWLS 
Showing  the  force  o£  natural  colours  in  ornamentations 

Collected  by  J.  W.  Hudson  and  Eugene  Mead 

mark.  - 

rated  with  a  thm-f«  ;•  ^  'u  .-•    ;< 
the  offsets  in  the  three  r*»ur> 
in  line  with  the  fiiuslnT-j  -  ?' 
is  often  iner,tit>n«-  ; 
Fi£    4  w  .v- 


*  bordering 
»d  in  white. 


Plate  1 85.     See  page  41 2 

TEJON  BOTTLE-NECK  AND  YOKUT  BOWL,  FRESNO  TYPE,  CALIFORNIA 

Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod  and  Collection  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF    BASKETRY  41! 

with  serrate  edges  in  brown  and  straight  venations  in  white  on 
the  middle  portion.  The  little  groups  of  marks  in  threes  on 
the  border  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  radiate  pattern. 

Plate  184  is  introduced  here  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
how  the  colours  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  pages  are  used  in 
giving  variety  and  beauty  to  the  surface  of  the  ware  in  this 
area.  The  yellow  golden  colour  is  that  of  the  usual  sewing- 
material.  The  black  is  produced  by  the  use  of  martynia.  The 
red  is  from  the  Yucca  arborescens.  In  the  ordinary  photo- 
graphic plate  the  effect  of  these  colours  is  lost,  but  in  the  illus- 
trations here  given  the  full  effect  is  brought  out.  Attention 
is  called  also  in  the  lower  figure  to  the  union  of  two  methods  of 
sewing.  In  the  figured  stripe  in  the  middle,  open  sewing  is 
shown,  while  on  the  rest  of  the  body  the  stitches  are  packed 
close  together.  It  has  Kern  Valley  or  Panamint  designs.  On 
the  upper  bowl  they  are  Yokut. 

The  following  information  concerning  the  basket  tangle  in 
this  area  is  from  Mr.  C.  P.  Wilcomb,  of  the  Memorial  Museum, 
San  Francisco.  The  Inyo  and  the  Kern  (Inyo-Kern)  basketry 
are  virtually  indistinguishable;  the  tribes  are  Paiute  (Sho- 
shonean).  The  Tulare  County  basketry  is  that  of  the  Yokuts, 
and  is  identical  with  that  of  the  Yokuts  of  Fresno  County  and 
of  the  Monache  or  Monos  (Shoshoneans  inhabiting  the  head- 
waters of  the  San  Joaquin  and  Kings  rivers).  The  Monache 
and  the  Fresno  work  are  somewhat  coarser  than  that  of  the 
Tulare  tribes,  but  in  materials  and  shapes  are  identical.  The 
Kern  tribes  are  mostly  on  upper  Kern  River  in  the  vicinity  of 
Kernville. 

The  Tulare-Fresno  foundation  is  made  of  grass  stems 
(Sporobolus  vilfa  or  Epicampes  rigens).  The  Inyo-Kern  foun- 
dation is  of  willow  (Salix  lasiandra) ,  or  sometimes  of  the  root 
of  sumac  (Rhus  trilobata).  For  the  Tulare  sewing,  roots  of 
slough  grass  (Cyperus  virens  or  Cladium  mariscus)  are  used, 
while  in  the  Kern,  willow  is  usually  employed.  For  the  red 
of  their  patterns  the  Tulare-Fresno  women  employ  the  redbud 


412  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

(Cercis  occidentalis) ,  which  is  coarser  than  the  root  of  the 
Yucca  arborescens,  used  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  Inyo- 
Kern  and  Panamint.  The  Yucca  root  is  of  light  yellowish -red 
like  willow  bark,  but  is  sometimes  as  dark  as  cercis.  In  some 
of  the  burden  baskets  and  winnowing  trays,  willow  bark  is 
used  for  red.  The  Paiutes  do  not  use  redbud.  For  black,  the 
Tulare-Fresno  women  use  the  common  fern  root  (Pteridium 
aquilinum) ,  while  in  Inyo-Kern  and  Panamint  the  heart  of  the 
tule  root  (Scirpus  nevadensis)  and  martynia  are  employed. 
In  Inyo-Kern  ware,  quail  tips  and  red  wool  are  rarely  used  on 
baskets  as  they  are  on  Tulare;  but  small  private  marks  and 
symbols  are  wrought  with  split  pink  quills  from  the  wood- 
pecker known  as  redshafted  nicker.  The  Tulare  make  many 
large  bowl-shaped  baskets.  In  Inyo  they  are  small,  if  of  this 
shape. 

Plate  185  will  emphasise  the  difference  hinted  at  in  the  fore- 
going text  between  the  coarser  and  finer  weaving  in  the  same 
area.  The  upper  figure  in  the  plate  is  a  Tejon  bottle-necked 
jar  in  the  collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod,  of  Bakersfield.  The  orna- 
mentation is  the  striped  pattern  well  known  among  the  differ- 
ent tribes  in  this  area.  The  foundation  is  laid  up  rather  wide 
for  the  size  of  the  basket,  and  the  sewing  far  apart,  the  stitches 
not  being  crowded  home.  Compare  this  with  the  specimen 
which  follows: 

Fig.  2,  Catalogue  No.  204,851,  United  States  National 
Museum,  is  a  fine  coiled  basket  bowl  collected  by  Eugene  Mead. 
The  foundation  is  of  the  three-stem  type.  The  sewing  is  in 
splints  of  Cladium.  The  ornamentation  is  in  the  black  fern 
root  (Pteridium  aquilinum) .  There  are  nine  rows  of  sewing  and 
thirteen  stitches  to  the  inch,  but  the  most  remarkable  feature 
in  this  large  bowl  is  that  the  three-rod  foundation  and  the 
sewing  together  make  a  fabric  not  more  than  an  eighth  of  an 
inch  in  thickness.  The  designs  are  two  serrated  lines  in  black. 
On  either  side  is  a  combination  of  symbolic  figures  which 
almost  resemble  letters  of  the  alphabet.  There  is  no  exact 


Plate  1 86.     See  page  413 

YOKUT  COILED  BASKET  BOWL,  WITH  STEPPED  DESIGNS  RADIATING, 
TULARE  COUNTY,  CAL. 

Collection  of  C.  P.  Wilcomb 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  413 

history  of  this  basket.  It  is  pronounced  to  be  the  Fresno  type 
of  Yokut  basket.  It  is  an  intrusive  form  among  the  Owens 
Valley  Paiutes,  captured  by  them  on  a  raid  into  the  interior 
side  of  the  Sierras  a  long  time  ago.  Its  height  is  ;£  inches,  and 
diameter  15  inches. 

Plate  1 86,  one  of  the  interesting  specimens  in  Mr.  Wil- 
comb's  collection,  is  an  Inyo  basket,  made  in  Inyo  County  by 
a  Tulare  squaw.  It  is  13  inches  in  diameter.  The  ornamenta- 
tion outside  the  plain  centre  is  radial  in  two  bands  of  stepped 
patterns,  the  inner  band  of  six,  the  outer  of  thirteen.  Each  one 
of  the  latter  having  five  parallel  elements,  there  are  with  the 
interspaces  seventy-eight  elementary  stepped  designs  in  the 
band.  The  border  is  the  oft-recurring  bunch  of  coloured 
stitches  in  groups. 

Plate  187  represents  baskets  in  the  collections  of  Stephen 
Powers  and  Miss  E.  F.  Hubby.  The  upper  one  is  Tulare,  and 
an  examination  shows  the  difference  between  the  open 
and  rather  coarse  texture  of  the  Tulare  basket  and  the 
very  much  more  refined  type  of  the  Santa  Ynez  basket  below. 
Besides  the  faultless  sewing  and  the  truly  charming  design, 
another  characteristic  worthy  of  observation  is  the  use  the 
weaver  has  made  of  small  differences  of  shade  in  the  splints  for 
sewing,  giving  a  clouded  effect  to  the  surface. 

From  the  Tule  River  country,  says  E.  L.  McLeod,  we  have 
the  fine  flexible  work,  an  improvement  on  their  more  northern 
sisters  in  Fresno.  But  the  women  of  the  Tejon  and  adjacent 
mountain  tribes  certainly  excelled  in  their  basketwork.  Their 
choice  ware  is  much  more  beautifully  finished,  their  patterns 
much  more  numerous,  and  here  is  where  they  show  the  influence 
of  both  north  and  south  in  the  number  and  diversity  of  their 
patterns ;  also  in  the  trading  of  materials.  Old  baskets  have 
been  taken  from  the  caves  where  the  bottom  was  Mission  and 
the  top  beautiful,  fine  Tejon;  also  examples  brought 
from  caves  in  Santa  Barbara  County  that  were  made 
over  in  the  Tejon,  as  the  stitch,  texture,  and  all  general 


414  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

appearance  go  to  show  that  they  were  carried  about  by  the 
Indians  with  them. 

An  excellent  example  of  moving  about  of  basketmakers  is 
given  by  McLeod.  A  woman  was  born  at  San  Gabriel  Mission, 
where  she  was  baptised  as  Maria  Narcissa,  and  is  now  about 
seventy  years  old.  She  was  brought  to  the  Tejon  Canyon  while 
a  young  child  about  nine  years  old,  and  she  still  remembers 
much  of  the  language  and  customs  of  her  native  people.  Her 
uncle  Sabastian  was  General  Fremont's  guide  into  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley  through  the  Tejon  Pass.  Maria  Narcissa  not 
only  learned  the  language  of  her  adopted  people,  but  many  of 
the  dialects  of  the  surrounding  tribes.  Between  forty  and 
fifty  years  ago  she  was  taken  as  wife  by  a  young  American  of 
English-German  parentage.  They  were  the  parents  of  a  large 
family  of  children,  and  gave  them  all  as  good  an  education  as 
possible,  especially  the  eldest  daughter. 

She  was  not  able  to  give  much  light  on  the  general  family 
relation.  The  tribes  from  the  north  as  far  up  as  Tule  River 
used  to  come  down  to  the  Tejon  for  some  purpose,  either  relig- 
ious or  social.  She  tells  of  gaming  baskets  and  great  feasts 
and  dances,  where  they  used  to  play  games  of  chance.  But 
by  far  the  longest  travel  was  from  San  Fernando,  San  Gabriel, 
Ventura,  Santa  Barbara,  and  Santa  Ynez.  Many  came  thence 
every  year  to  the  Tejon,  and  unquestionable  evidence  in  the 
meeting  of  all  these  streams  exists  in  their  basketwork. 

In  a  translation  from  Costans  (1769)*  occurs  this  account 
of  the  Santa  Barbara  basketmakers: 

These  are  [the  Indian  women]  who  make  the  trays  and  vases 
of  rushes,  to  which  they  give  a  thousand  different  forms  and  grace- 
ful patterns,  according  to  the  uses  to  which  they  are  destined, 
whether  it  be  for  eating,  drinking,  guarding  their  seeds,  or  other 
ends,  for  these  people  do  not  know  the  use  of  earthenware  as 
those  of  San  Diego  use  it.  ... 

The  large  vessels,  which  hold  water,  are  of  a  very  strong  weave 

*  Land  of  Sunshine,  XV,  1901,  p.  39. 


agsq  932     .^81 


has  isbiod  tnsJJfiq-^ajl  d]iw  JaXzed  noiastra  auoiDaiq  has  bio  ne  rijiw  bs 
zngiasb  baqqate 

biBnoaJ  bns  nivsO  bns  iiawol  nariqsJg  vd  bsJaalloD 


4*4 

appearance  go  to  sho-  t 

with  them 

An  ex<  < 

en  by  McLeod.     A  wosnti;  wa<  '• 

re  she  was  baptise* 
wventy  years  old.     Slue  wi. 

a  young  child  abox  a*,  still  reman, 

much  of  the  Ian...  .*r  native  people.     Her 

uncle  Sabastian  w-. 

Joaquin  V;  ,'•  '          N     .  issu  not 

only  learne*  ut  many  of 

the  dialects  of  the  surron  Between  forty  and 

fifty  years  ajjo  she  was  taken  a-  young  American  of 

English -Gernta n  parentage.     They  were  the  parents  of  a  large 
family  n,  and  gave  them  all  as  good  an  e-  n  as 

•  •• 'liter. 

Plate  187.    See  page  413 

TULARE  COILED  JAR 

Compared  with  an  old  and  precious  mission  basket  with  key-pattern  border  and 

stepped  designs 
Collected  by  Stephen  Powers  and  Gavin  and  Leonard 


'. 

meeting  . -.f   ,  ^ivloeiwork. 

IT    ' 

;•..'' 

These  are  [th«  Indian  *  m^  s  and  vases 

of  rushes,  to  which  they  givt  ,s  and  grace- 

ful patterns,  according  to  the  y  are  destined, 

whether  it  be  for  eat  -'kv**   (guarding  tbeir  aeeds,  or  other 

ends,  for  these  people  do  act  kao*r  tiw   ate  of  earthenware   as 
those  of  S.in  Diego  use  it      ... 

..-e  vessels,  which  hoM  water,  are  of  a  very  strong  weave 

•  Land  of  Sunshine,  XV,  i  QO  i ,  p 


Plate  1 88.     See  page  415  123 

COILED  BASKETS  OF  KERN  AND  TULARE  COUNTIES,  CAL.,    647S8 
FOR  STUDY  IN  DESIGNS  9    I0 


Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  415 

of  rushes  [junco],  pitched  within,  and  they  give  them  the  same  form 
as  our  tinigas  [water  jars]. 

Plates  1 88  to  195  are  taken  from  baskets  in  the  McLeod 
collection,  and  cover  the  subjects  of  form  and  design  in  the 
Inyo-Kern  and  Tulare-Fresno  area.  They  furnish  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  seeing  how  far  a  few  simple  geometric  elements 
combine  in  kaleidoscopic  effects  in  the  hands  of  the  skilful 
Indian  woman.  Some  of  these  specimens  are  of  exceeding 
delicacy,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder  how  so  many  little  stems 
of  uniform  diameter  could  be  gathered  together.  Gauges  are 
out  of  the  question. 

Plate  1 88,  fig.  i,  crenelated  and  chevroned  designs ;  colour, 
cream,  black,  and  red;  diameter,  12  inches;  depth,  9  inches. 

Fig.  2  is  a  very  different  pattern,  resembling  a  pine  tree; 
colour,  two  shades  of  brown,  black,  and  cream;  diameter,  13 
inches;  depth,  10  inches. 

Fig.  3,  diameter,  u£  inches;  depth,  8£  inches;  24  stitches 
to  the  inch;  very  rich  shades  of  brown,  mottled,  cream,  and 
black.  Pattern  very  peculiar ;  so  flexible  that  it  has  been  bent 
together;  a  most  beautiful  specimen. 

Fig.  4,  diameter,  u^  inches;  depth,  7^  inches;  15  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  body,  brown ;  design,  black  and  cream ;  very  rare. 

Fig.  5,  diameter,  n£  inches;  depth,  7  inches;  22  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  red,  black,  and  cream. 

Fig.  6,  diameter,  13 £  inches;  depth,  9^  inches;  24  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream,  and  two  shades  of  brown. 

Fig.  7,  diameter,  n£  inches;  depth,  7^  inches;  18  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  red,  black,  and  cream ;  very  old ;  used  for 
cooking  grubs. 

Fig.  8,  diameter,  10  inches;  depth,  7  inches;  20  stitches  to 
the  inch ;  colour,  black,  brown,  red,  and  cream. 

Fig.  9,  diameter,  21}  inches;  depth,  15  inches;  12  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream  and  brown.  Very  effective ;  splints 
even,  well  made,  but  not  closely  woven;  the  spirals  are  built 
up  by  elongating  the  little  rectangles. 


41 6  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Plate  189,  Tulare  baskets,  fig.  i,  diameter,  22  inches; 
depth,  13  inches;  30  stitches  to  the  inch;  wood  mottled,  dark 
and  light  brown,  and  red.  One  of  the  very  old  style  of  flexible 
gambling  baskets.  It  would  be  possible  to  bend  it  together. 
The  variety  of  effects  here  shown  by  the  mere  use  of  the  broken 
line  must  be  noted. 

Fig.  2,  bottle,  diameter,  8£  inches;  depth,  3!  inches;  diam- 
eter of  neck,  2f  inches ;  1 7  stitches  to  the  inch ;  colour,  black 
and  red ;  wood  dark  with  age. 

Fig.  3,  diameter,  9  inches;  depth,  5^  inches;  22  stitches  to 
the  inch;  colour,  brown,  red,  and  white. 

Fig.  4,  diameter,  8  inches;  depth,  4^  inches;  neck,  3! 
inches;  22  stitches  to  the  inch;  colour,  cream,  red,  and  brown. 
Red  wool  and  quail  plumes. 

Fig.  5,  diameter,  9  inches;  depth,  6  inches;  14  stitches  to 
the  inch;  colour,  black  and  natural  wood;  very  old.  The 
white  woman  from  whom  Mr.  McLeod  purchased  this  basket 
had  owned  it  for  fifty  years. 

Fig.  6,  diameter,  15  inches;  depth,  9  inches;  14  stitches  to 
the  inch ;  colour,  brown,  red,  and  mottled  wood. 

Fig.  7,  diameter,  8  inches;  depth,  8  inches;  22  stitches  to 
the  inch. 

Plate  190,  group  of  baskets  from  Tejon,  Kern  County. 
Fig.  i,  diameter,  13  inches;  depth,  7^  inches;  18  stitches  to 
the  inch ;  colour,  cream,  black,  red,  and  brown. 

Fig.  2,  mortar  basket ;  diameter,  17  inches;  depth,  8  inches; 
colour,  cream. 

Fig.  3,  diameter,  \2\  inches;  depth,  7  inches;  24  stitches 
to  the  inch;  colour,  black,  brown,  red,  and  cream;  very  old 
and  fine  specimen. 

Fig.  4,  diameter,  7  inches;  depth,  3!  inches;  20  stitches  to 
the  inch;  colour,  black,  brown,  cream,  and  with  spots  of 
yellowhammer  quill. 

Fig.  5,  diameter,  4^  inches;   depth,  3^  inches;    30  stitches 


Plate  190.     See  page  416  t      2 

GROUP  OF  COILED  BASKETS,  CHIEFLY  TEJON,      45678 
KERN  COUNTY,  CAL. 

Collection  of  E  L.  McLeod 


'late  191.     See  page  417 

COILED  BASKETS,   KERN  AND  TULARE  TYPES, 
CALIFORNIA 

Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod 


i      2      3 

4      5      0 
7      8      9 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  417 

to  the  inch;  colour,  cream  and  brown;  very  old  and  most 
beautifully  made. 

Fig.  6,  oblong;  length,  13  inches;  width,  12  inches;  depth,  6 
inches;  1 8  stitches  to  the  inch;  colour,  brown  and  cream.  A 
very  peculiar  basket,  as  the  pattern  is  so  allied  to  those  of 
Arizona  and  New  Mexico. 

Fig.  7,  diameter,  5  inches;  height,  3  inches;  24  stitches  to 
the  inch;  colour,  dark  wood,  cream,  brown,  and  white,  with 
dots  and  rim  of  red  wool.  This  was  a  birth-gift  basket,  being 
presented  filled  with  silver  coins  to  an  Indian  woman,  from 
whom  it  was  purchased  at  the  birth  of  one  of  her  daughters, 
who  is  now  forty  years  old.  The  giver  was  Sabastian,  General 
Fremont's  guide. 

Fig.  8,  diameter,  6£  inches;  height,  5^  inches;  21  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  black  and  cream ;  very  old. 

Fig.  9,  diameter,  12  inches;  circumference,  38  inches; 
depth,  7^  inches ;  15  stitches  to  the  inch ;  colour,  black,  brown, 
cream,  and  mottled  wood. 

Fig.  10,  oblong;  length,  4  inches;  width,  3  inches;  height, 
3  inches ;  2  2  stitches  to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream  and  brown. 

Fig.  n,  diameter,  20  inches;  depth,  12  inches;  24  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream ;  pattern,  black. 

Plate  191,  baskets  from  Kern  and  Tulare  counties.  Fig.  i, 
Kern  County;  diameter,  18  inches;  depth,  12  inches;  17 
stitches  to  the  inch;  colour,  cream,  brown,  and  red.  A  very 
dark  basket.  The  vertical  row  of  triangles  and  the  human 
figures  must  be  observed. 

Fig.  2,  diameter,  8£  inches;  depth,  6  inches;  diameter  of 
neck,  3!  inches;  22  stitches  to  the  inch;  very  fine  in  weave, 
shape,  and  finish ;  colour,  rich  cream,  black,  and  red ;  very  old ; 
made  at  Tejon. 

Fig.  3,  diameter,  6  inches ;  depth,  4^  inches ;  neck  diameter, 
2^  inches;  17  stitches  to  the  inch;  made  at  Tejon.  Top  is 
brown;  bottom  and  patterns  are  white  with  black  markings. 
This  design  is  the  "Sachem  dancing  about  the  funeral 


41 8  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

baskets. "  Such  examples  are  strung  on  poles  erected  at 
their  burial  places. 

Fig.  4,  diameter,  15^  inches;  depth,  9  inches;  18  stitches 
to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream  and  three  shades  of  brown. 

Fig.  5,  Kern  County  squaw  cap;  diameter,  8  inches;  depth, 
5  inches ;  26  stitches  to  the  inch ;  colour,  cream,  black,  and  red. 

Fig.  6,  Kern  County  basket;  diameter,  20  inches;  depth, 
12^  inches;  colour,  cream,  brown,  red,  and  black. 

Fig.  7,  Tulare  basket;  diameter,  30  inches;  depth, 
1 7  inches ;  1 4  stitches  to  the  inch ;  colour,  dark  wood,  red,  and 
black.  Braided  edge;  very  beautifully  woven  and  finished. 
The  thread  is  regular  but  wide.  The  squaw  was  one  year  in 
making  it. 

Fig.  8,  diameter,  7f  inches;  depth,  5  inches;  diameter  of 
neck,  4  inches ;  20  stitches  to  the  inch ;  made  in  Kern  County ; 
colours,  body  in  brown;  pattern,  in  black  and  white. 

Fig.  9,  Tulare  basket ;  diameter,  7  inches ;  depth,  4  inches ; 
30  stitches  to  the  inch;  colour,  wood,  black,  red,  white,  dark 
brown,  and  red  wool ;  a  beauty. 

Plate  192,  group  of  baskets  from  South  Fork  Caliente 
Creek  and  Paiute  Mountain  (McLeod's  Plate  n). 

Basket  No.  i,  diameter,  24  inches;  depth,  15 J  inches; 
stitches,  14;  colours,  cream,  black,  red,  brown.  The  note- 
worthy features  are  the  simple,  undecorated  crenelations. 
Compare  fig.  9. 

No.  2,  diameter,  21  inches;  depth,  15^  inches;  stitches,  17; 
colour,  body,  mottled  wood  shades;  pattern,  cream,  black, 
and  dark  red.  This  is  a  very  choice  specimen.  The  design  is 
one  that  they  use  when  they  make  a  basket  for  a  special  friend- 
ship gift,  and  is  highly  prized.  The  owner  was  five  years  in 
getting  the  squaw  to  part  with  this  basket. 

No.  3,  described  on  another  plate. 

No.  4,  diameter,  18  inches;  depth,  13^  inches;  stitches,  17; 
colour,  body,  wood  shades ;  pattern,  cream,  black,  red ;  a  very 
beautiful  basket. 


Plate  192.     See  page  418 

COILED  BASKETS  FROM  CALIENTO  CREEK  AND  PAIUTE 
MOUNTAIN,  CAL.     BOTTOM  Row  CHIEFLY  ; 

PANAMINT  SHOSHONEAN 
Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod 


345 

6     7 
9      10 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  419 

No.  5,  described  on  another  plate. 

No.  6,  diameter,  7^  inches;  depth,  6£  inches;  stitches,  19; 
colour,  cream,  red,  and  black ;  a  very  fine  squaw  cap. 

No.  7,  diameter,  8  inches;  depth,  6  inches;  stitches,  17; 
colour,  cream,  black,  and  brown. 

No.  8,  diameter,  15^ inches;  depth,  n^ inches;  stitches,  14; 
colour,  cream,  red,  and  an  unusual  amount  of  black.  This 
design,  with  some,  is  the  tail  of  the  rattlesnake,  and  with 
others  the  arrowhead.  The  administration  of  radial  patterns 
is  a  striking  feature  in  this  plate.  The  forms  of  the  radii,  but 
chiefly  the  varied  markings  on  them,  are  most  effective. 

No.  9,  described  on  another  plate. 

No.  10,  diameter,  n£  inches;  depth,  9  inches;  stitches,  22; 
colour,  black,  brown,  and  cream,  with  yellow-hammer  quills; 
a  very  odd  shape  and  good  pattern. 

No.  n,  diameter,  15  inches;  depth,  n  inches;  stitches,  15; 
colour,  rich  red,  brown,  black,  and  cream.  A  very  striking 
example  and  unusual  for  so  much  dark  colour. 

Plate  193  is  a  fine  coiled  basket  of  the  Kern  County  Indians, 
who  belong  to  the  Shoshonean  family.  It  was  made  in  Cane- 
brake  Canyon  by  the  last  old  basketmaker  of  the  tribe,  who 
was  swept  away  in  a  flood  in  August,  1901.  The  decorative 
patterns  are  ideal.  Nine  vertical  stripes  in  black  and  red,  with 
stepped  borders  and  diamond  figures  on  the  interior,  rise  from 
the  plain  bottom  and  extend  to  the  lower  edge  of  the  rim.  The 
latter  has  its  own  fine-checkered,  sloping  designs,  with  no  rela- 
tion to  the  decoration  on  the  body.  Circumference,  29  inches ; 
diameter,  9  inches;  height,  5  inches;  stitches  to  the  inch,  32; 
colours,  red,  black,  and  cream.  A  design  of  quail  plumes  is 
shown  on  the  border. 

Plate  194  is  a  coiled  bottle-neck  from  Canebrake  Canyon, 
Kern  River,  Kern  County.  Diameter,  9  inches;  height,  6 
inches;  stitches  to  the  inch,  24;  colour,  cream,  black,  and 
brown.  This  and  Plate  193  were  both  made  by  the  same 
squaw,  who  was  supposed  to  be  about  eighty-five  years  of  age, 


420  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

and  was  the  last  really  good  weaver  in  Kern  County.  The 
ornamentation  on  this  basket  consists  in  a  band  of  dentate 
figures  on  the  bottom  and  three  bands  of  crenelated  ornament 
on  the  body  and  top.  The  dentate  figures  also  occur  on  the 
outer  projection  of  the  crenelles  on  the  body.  Dr.  Merriam 
has  found  this  pattern  symbolising  the  spasmodic  flight  of  a 
butterfly.  Below  the  border  of  the  lower  band  are  rhombs  in 
pairs,  and  there  are  five  checker  oblique  patterns  about  the 
rim. 

Plate  195,  McLeod  collection,  is  a  Kern  County  basket  from 
Paiute  Mountain,  called  by  him  the  apostolic  basket,  from  the 
human  figures  on  the  top.  Diameter,  15  inches;  height,  12 
inches;  stitches  to  the  inch,  28 ;  colours,  red,  brown,  black,  and 
cream.  The  owner  speaks  of  this  as  the  most  beautiful  speci- 
men in  his  collection.  The  woman  was  three  years  at  work  on 
it,  and  it  is  at  least  sixty  years  old.  The  ornamentation  con- 
sists of  discrete  figures  of  five  rectangles,  thirteen  men  on  the 
upper  part,  but  chiefly  of  seven  radial  patterns  ascending  to  the 
mouth.  Each  is  made  up  of  a  continuous  series  of  rectangular 
figures  touching  and  by  echelon.  This  pattern  will  be  seen 
frequently,  and  the  specimen  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  that 
particular  design. 

Fig.  172  is  a  grasshopper  basket  of  the  Wikchumni  Indians 
(Mariposan  family),  in  a  style  of  technic  which  may  be  called 
interrupted  coiled  work.  The  foundation  is  a  small  bundle  of 
stems  or  shreds.  The  sewing  consists  in  wrapping  the  founda- 
tion from  five  to  ten  times  with  the  splint,  and  then  catching 
this  under  one  or  two  turns  of  the  coil  below  in  the  form  of 
stitches,  the  only  bond  which  holds  the  fabric  together  being 
these  few  stitches.  Another  example  of  this  sort  of  interrupted 
work  in  North  America  is  shown  in  Plate  126,  illustrating 
basketry  from  the  Eskimo  of  Hudson  Bay. 

The  existence  of  this  type  of  basketry  in  a  restricted  area 
among  the  Mariposan  family  raises  interesting  questions  about 
the  cause  of  its  occurrence  here.  The  ornamentation  consists 


Plate  193.     See  page  419 

BOTTLE-NECK  COILED  BOWL,  TRIMMED  WITH  FEATHERS, 
KERN  COUNTY,  CAL. 

Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


421 


in  rows,  hour-glass  patterns,  and  figures  resembling  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet,  done  in  brown  material,  like  cercis  or  fern 
stems. 

The  detail  of  this  interrupted  work  is  well  shown  in  fig.  173, 
where  the  wrapping  is  plainly  illustrated,  and  also  the  methods 
of  joining.  By  bring- 
ing the  stitches  one 
over  another,  geomet- 
rical patterns  are 
produced.  As  the 
work  widens,  new 
rows  are  introduced, 
as  will  be  seen  in  the 
principal  figure. 

This  specimen, 
Catalogue  No. 
215,586  in  the  United 
States  National  Mu- 
seum, is  a  gift  from 
C.  P.  Wilcomb,  of 
California. 

Mr.  McLeod,  who 
has  the  largest  collec- 
tion of  the  grasshop- 
per baskets,  says  of 
them  that  they  have 
no  such  function..  They  are  all  made  by  two  families,  the 
Butterbread  and  the  Williams,  living  in  Kelsey  Canyon,  Kern 
County,  California.  The  sewing  and  wrapping  are  faultless. 
The  ornamentation  is  chiefly  in  plain  lines  and  rectangles. 
On  one  of  them,  fig.  10,  the  chevroned  design  is  attempted 
with  doubtful  success,  but  figs.  2  and  3  have  the  stepped 
radial  patterns  well  carried  out,  and  on  fig.  9  the  human 
conventional  figure  is  cleverly  executed.  (See  Plate  196.) 

Mission  Indian  basketmakers  belong  to  the  Shoshonean 


FIG.  172. 

GRASSHOPPER  BASKET. 

Wikchumi    Indians,  California. 

Cat.  No.  215,586,  U.S.N.M. 


422 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


and  Yuman  families.  They  receive  their  several  names  from 
the  Franciscan  missions  of  southern  California,  into  which  they 
were  gathered,  and  where  their  tribal  identity  was  lost.  In 
the  present  state  of  knowledge  it  is  not  possible  to  distinguish 
the  linguistic  family  of  each  by  the  shape,  technic,  or  designs 
of  basketry.  In  Powell's  Indian  linguistic  families  the  Yuman 
tribes  include  the  Coconino  or  Havasupai,  Cocopas,  Yuman 
proper,  Dieguenos,  Maricopas,  Mohave,  Seri,  Guaicum,  and 

Walapai.  These  tribes  occu- 
pied the  peninsula  of  lower 
California,  and  are  also  mixed 
with  other  tribes  in  southern 
California,  and  across  the 
Colorado  into  Mexico  and 
southward  into  Mexico. 

The  material  of  Mission 
Indian  baskets  differs  accord- 
ing to  locality.  A  rush,  prob- 
ably several  species,  is  used 
for  the  sewing.  The  best 
known  to  Mr.  Coville  is  Juncus  lesnerii,  the  Techahet 
Indians  using  it  almost  exclusively.  This  plant  is  collected 
and  dried,  and  what  are  often  thought  to  be  brushes 
by  strangers  are  merely  bunches  of  this  rush  prepared  for 
the  weaver's  use.  A  tall,  thin  grass,  Vilfa  rigens,  is  used 
as  the  body  of  the  coil,  about  which  pieces  of  the  Juncus  are 
wound.  Such  of  the  latter  as  are  intended  for  ornamentation 
are  dyed  black  by  steeping  in  water  with  portions  of  Sueda 
diffusa;  and  a  rich  yellowish  brown  is  produced  in  a  like  man- 
ner from  the  plants  Dalea  emoryi  and  Dalea  polyadenia.  The 
bottoms  of  large  baskets  are  often  strengthened  by  the  intro- 
duction of  twigs  of  Rhus  aromatica  or  three-leaf  sumac.  Dr. 
Merriam  finds  that  latterly  the  leaf  of  a  palm  (N eowashing- 
tonia  filamentosa)  is  used  for  sewing.  The  work  resembles 
that  done  in  raffia. 


FIG.  173. 
DETAIL  OF  FIG.   172. 


Plate  194.     See  page  419 

BOTTLE-NECK  COILED  BOWL,  WITH  BUTTERFLY  FLIGHT  DESIGN, 
KERN  COUNTY,  CAL. 


Plate  195.     See  page  420 

APOSTLE  BASKET,  FLAT  TOP  BOTTLE-NECK,  KERN  COUNTY,  CAL. 

Collection  of  E.  L.  McLeod 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  423 

In  beginning  a  basket,  a  central  foundation  is  made  and  the 
rush  wound  about  it  and  coiled,  fastened  by  fibers  passing 
through  holes  made  for  the  purpose  with  a  pointed  bone  or 
metal  awl.  This  is  the  commonest  method  employed. 

To  assist  the  student  in  understanding  the  relationship 
of  arts  in  southern  California,  the  following  account  of  tribes 
from  Dr.  Barrows  will  be  helpful.  The  Indian  tribes  south 
of  Santa  Inez  Mountains  on  the  coast  and  San  Joaquin  Valley 
in  the  interior  fall  into  three  divisions:  (i)  Tribes  of  Santa 
Barbara  channels  and  islands  covering  the  coast  of  Ventura 
County;  (2)  Serranos;  (3)  Coahuillas. 

The  Serranos  live  on  a  small  reservation  at  San  Bernardino 
and  on  the  Morongo  Reservation  in  the  San  Gorgonio  pass  in 
southern  California.  They  are  called  Takhtam  by  Loew. 

The  Coahuillas  live  in  the  Colorado  Desert  and  the  San 
Jacinto  Mountains.  The  word  is  also  spelled  Kauvuyah  by 
Gatschet  after  Loew.  Dr.  Barrows  thinks  this  to  be  only 
the  German  spelling  for  Coahuilla  (pronounced  Kau-vu-yah). 

With  them  he  joins  by  speech  the  Indians  of  the  missions 
northward,  making  a  Coahuillian  linguistic  family;  perhaps 
it  were  better  a  subfamily. 

Coahuillian  subfamily 

1.  Coahuillas.     Colorado  Desert  and  San  Jacinto  Mountains. 

2.  Gaitchim.     Oscar  Loew's  name  for  Netela. 

3.  Kechi.     Missions  of  San  Luis  Rey. 

4.  Kizh.     San  Gabriel  Mission. 

5.  Luisenos.     (See  Kechi.) 

6.  San  Fernando  Mission. 

7.  Serranos. 

8.  Takhtam  or  Takhtem,  Loew's  name  for  Serranos. 

9.  Temeculas.     At  Pechanga,  eight  miles  north  from  Luisenos. 
10.  Tobikhar.     Loew's  name  for  Kizh. 

Barrows  narrates  that  the  Coahuilla  basketry  and  that  of  the 
Dieguenos  as  well  as  Luisenos  is  of  the  one  California  type, 
namely,  coiled  ware,  and  fragments  of  similar  technic  have 


424  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

been  found  by  Schumacher  in  the  graves  of  the  Santa  Barbara 
channel.  He  quotes  Humboldt  to  the  effect  that  the  Indians 
presented  the  Spaniards  "with  vases  curiously  wrought  of 
stalks  of  rushes  and  covered  with  a  very  thin  layer  of  asphal- 
tum  that  renders  them  impenetrable  to  water."  Lumps  of 
the  material  are  said  to  have  been  put  into  the  basket  with 
hot  stones  and  shaken  with  a  rotary  motion  to  distribute  it. 
The  foundation  of  the  coil  is  a  bunch  of  grass,  su-ul  (Vilfa 
rigens) ;  the  sewing  -  material  varies  according  to  the  colour 
desired.  The  three-leaf  sumac  (Rhus  trilobatd)  gives  a  light 
straw  colour ;  these  are  dyed  black  in  a  wash  made  from  the 
berry  stain  of  the  elder,  hun  kwat  (Sambucus) .  The  other 
sewing-material  is  a  bulrush  or  reed  grass  (Juncus  lesnerii,  or 
Juncus  robustus}.  The  scape  and  leaves  are  2  to  4  feet  high 
or  more,  stout,  and  pungent.  A  supply  of  these  is  gathered 
by  the  basketmaker  and  cut  into  suitable  lengths.  The 
woman  then  with  her  hands  and  teeth  splits  the  scape  care- 
fully into  three  equal  portions.  Near  its  base  the  rush  is  of 
a  deep  red,  lightening  in  colour  upward,  passing  through  sev- 
eral shades  of  light  brown,  and  ending  at  the  top  in  a  brown- 
ish yellow.  For  dyeing  black,  ngaial  (Sueda  diffusa)  is  also 
employed,  and  Dr.  Palmer  also  mentions  a  dahlia  (D.  polya- 
denia}  as  furnishing  a  yellowish -brown  dye. 

The  Techahet  use  the  reed  grass  (Juncus  robustus)  or  the 
Rhus  trilobata,  and  the  tall,  thin  grass  (Vilfa  rigens}  in  a  dried 
state  for  making  basketry,  the  first  two  for  binding  material, 
the  latter  for  the  body.  The  reed  grass  is  split  and  some  of 
it  dyed,  usually  brown.  The  basket  is  begun  at  the  center  of 
the  bottom,  the  thickness  of  the  coil  of  grass  depending  upon 
the  size  of  the  basket  to  be  made.  A  bone  pricker  is  used. 
The  coil  is  begun  by  laying  one  end  of  the  filament  upon  the 
bunch  of  grass  and  taking  a  few  wraps  about  it  to  hold  it 
down.  This  is  bent  double,  and  the  sewing  progresses  by 
catching  the  filament  over  the  bunch  of  grass  through  the 
coil  of  the  sewing  filament  made  at  the  last  turn. 


f) 

o 
o 


W 

M 


u  -o 

M  8 

w  »J 

PQ  S 


ol  W 

w  •« 

(X  O 

a.  c 

o  .2 


o 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  425 

Basket -making  among  the  Coahuillas  belongs  to  the  old 
women.  They  sit  flat  on  the  ground,  with  the  feet  thrust 
out  in  front.  The  deft  artist  holds  her  work  in  her  lap;  at 
her  right  lies  the  grass  for  the  foundation ;  on  her  left,  soaking 
in  a  pot  of  water,  her  variously  coloured  splints.  Her  only 
tool  is  her  awl,  "wish,"  anciently  of  bone;  or  a  cactus  spine 
set  in  a  piece  of  asphaltum;  but  now  a  nail  serves  the  pur- 
pose, one  end  pointed,  the  other  in  a  handle  of  manzanita 
wood.  The  sewing-materials  are  named  according  to  colours 
— the  scapes  of  juncas  se  il ;  the  red  portion,  i  i  ul ;  dyed  black 
they  are  se-il-tu-iksh.  Splints  from  sumac  are  se-lit,  and  the 
grass  of  the  foundation  su-ul.  No  model  or  pattern  is  ever 
used.  The  border  is  finished  by  simply  cutting  the  sewing- 
material  close  on  the  inner  side.  The  most  common  form,  se- 
whal-lal,  of  the  Coahuilla  basket  has  a  flat  bottom  and  gently 
flaring  sides,  a  depth  of  from  4  to  7  inches,  and  a  width  of  from 
13  to  20  inches.  These  are  for  holding  foods,  including  seeds, 
grains,  and  fruits,  household  utensils,  and  basket  materials. 
Small,  globular  baskets,  with  bulging  sides  and  rather  wide 
mouths,  5  to  10  inches  in  diameter,  are  called  te-vin-ze-mal. 
They  are  the  prettiest  and  the  most  carefully  ornamented,  and 
are  used  to  hold  trinkets  and  sewing-materials.  The  deep 
packing  baskets,  se-kwa-vel-em,  are  about  eighteen  inches 
deep  and  are  used  for  carrying  loads.  Rawhide  strings,  ka 
wi  ve,  are  tied  to  the  opposite  edges  to  pass  around  the  fore- 
head, but  usually  the  basket  is  sustained  in  a  net.  They  are 
used  not  only  for  food  gathering,  but  on  the  threshing  floor 
for  storing  foods.  The  chi-pat-mal  is  a  round,  almost  flat 
basket,  16  to  18  inches  in  diameter  and  one  or  more  inches 
deep,  used  for  harvesting.  The  woman  beats  it  full  of  grass 
seeds  or  fills  it  with  elder  berries  or  cactus  fruit,  and  transfers 
the  contents  to  the  packing  basket  on  her  back.  It  makes  a 
good  tray,  platter,  fruit  dish,  or  receptacle  for  meal,  and  is 
exclusively  the  winnower. 

The  basket  hat,  yu-ma-wal,  shaped  like  a  truncated  cone, 


426 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


is  worn  by  women  especially  to  protect  the  head  from  the 
carrying  band.  It  serves  also  for  a  water  dipper  or  mixing 
pan.  The  chi-pa-cha-kish,  holding  about  two  quarts,  is  an 
openwork  basket  of  network,  made  from  the  unsplit,  flattened 
scapes  of  the  se-il,  or  Juncus.  They  are  often  provided  with 
a  bail,  and  hung  up  in  the  house  or  ramada  to  hold  fruit  or 
vegetables.* 

Fig.  1 74  is  a  coiled  basket  of  the  Coahuilla  (Shoshonean  fam- 
ily) .    The  foundation  coil  is  of  stems  of  grass ;  the  sewing  is  in 


FIG.  174. 

COILED    BOWL. 

Coahuilla  Indians,  California. 

Cat.  No.  21,787,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 

splints  of  sumac  (Rhus  trilobatd).  The  ornamentation  is  in 
stems  of  rush  dyed  black  with  sea-blite  (Dondia  suffrutescens) . 
No  special  study  has  been  made  of  the  meaning  in  the 
designs  upon  the  Coahuilla  basketry.  It  is  impossible,  there- 
fore, to  guess  what  the  combinations  of  parallelograms  may 
mean.  From  the  point  of  view  of  elementary  forms  in  design, 
it  is  interesting  to  note  what  diversities  of  effects  may  be  pro- 

*  David  Prescott  Barrows,  The  Ethno-Botany  of  the  Coahuilla  Indians 
of  Southern  California,  Chicago,  1900.  Chapter  IV  (quoting  Paul  Schu- 
macher, Humboldt,  Hugo  Reid,  and  Edward  Palmer). 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


427 


duced  by  variations  in  the  form  and  composition  of  simple 
geometric  patterns.  Five  of  the  figures  on  the  example  here 
shown  are  built  up  of  rhomboidal  elements,  and  a  single  one 
is  the  composition  of  rectangles  in  quincunxes. 

Fig.  175  is  a  view  of  the  inside  of  the  bowl,  showing  the 
ornamentation.  A  square  inch  of  coil  foundation,  made  up 
of  straws  or  small  filaments,  is  shown  in  fig.  176.  This  speci- 


FIG.  175 
INSIDE  VIEW  OF  FIG.  174. 


men,  Catalogue  No.  21,787  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  was  procured  in  southern  California  by  Edward 
Palmer. 

Fig.  177  is  an  inside  view  of  another  specimen  from  the 
Coahuilla,  made  of  the  same  material.  It  is  possible  that 
some  of  the  specimens  from  this  tribe  are  sewed  with  splints 
of  willow.  It  is  difficult  in  the  dried  form  to  distinguish  the 
two  materials.  The  pretty,  attractive  design  on  this  speci- 


428  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

men  is  simplicity  itself.  Small  triangles  are  arranged  in  two 
rows,  half  of  them  joining  outward  and  the  other  half  inward 
from  the  base,  forming  a  continuous  circle.  One  row  is  so 
suggested  with  reference  to  the  other  that  the  white  space 
between  forms  a  continuous  chevron.  It  is  a  little  difficult 
to  say  whether  the  whole  meaning  of  such  a  result  from  sim- 
ple processes  was  in  the  mind  of  the  basketmaker.  While 
not  wishing  to  deprive  her  of  all  the  credit  due  to  her  for  this 

beautiful  work,  one  can  scarcely 
refrain  from  thinking  that  the 
total  effect  was  not  comprehended 
by  the  artist. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No. 
21,786  in  the  United  States  Na- 
tional Museum,  was  collected  in 
southern  California  by  Edward 
Palmer. 
FIG  176.  Plate  107  is  a  plain  Mission 

SQUARE  INCH  OF  FIG.  174- 

bowl  in  the  Rust  collection, 

United  States  National  Museum.  Its  shape,  foundation,  and 
sewing  are  all  typical.  The  general  shading  and  the  spots 
on  the  surface  were  achieved  by  using  different  parts  of  the 
straw. 

Plate  198,  of  the  same  collection,  also  illustrates  typical 
Mission  ware.  The  designs  are  not  exclusively  of  the  region. 
In  the  right-hand  pile  several  colours  are  introduced,  and  they 
are  instructive  as  showing  the  artist's  struggles  to  unite  natu- 
ral shades  in  the  material  with  geometric  designs  in  coiled 
textile.  The  top  basket  in  this  row  is  made  of  desert  palm 
(Neowashingtonia  filamentosd),  described  first  by  C.  Hart 
Merriam  (p.  405),  and  the  sewing  is  in  highly  coloured  mate- 
rials. Palmer  long  ago  told  us  that  the  Coahuilla  Indians  used 
sea-blite  and  Parosela  in  dyeing  the  rushes  used  in  basketry. 
It  is  just  possible  that  those  who  are  looking  for  materials  for 
basket-making  may  find  the  desert  palm  serviceable. 


Plate  199.     See  page  429 

MISSION  INDIAN  COILED  BOWL 

Designs  dyed  with  sea-blite  and  in  natural  colours.     The  stripe  near  the  middle  said  to  be 
the  owner's  mark 

Collection  of  George  Wharton  James 


Plate  200.     See  page  429 

DETAIL  OF  MISSION  INDIAN  COILED  BOWL,  COILING,  DECORATING,  BORDERING, 

AND   FASTENING  OFF 

Detail  of  Plate  197 


Plate  201.     See  page  429 

ANCIENT  COILED  BOWLS,  FROM  SAX  MARTIN  MOUNTAIN,  CAL.,  IN 
PEABODY  MUSEUM 

Photographed  by  C.  C.  Willoughby 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


429 


Plate  199  is  a  coiled  bowl  made  by  the  Mission  Indians  of 
California,  illustrating  the  technic  with  splint  foundation. 
The  sewing  of  the  Mission  baskets  is  sometimes  in  bulrush 
and  at  others  in  splints.  The  dark  mark  near  the  center  is 
said  to  be  the  signature  of  the  maker.  The  colours  in  the  orna- 


PlG.    177. 

COILED  BOWL. 

Coahuilla  Indians,  California. 
Cat.  No.  21,786.  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 


ment  around  the  border  are  produced  by  sewing  dyed  or 
natural  material  of  different  shades. 

Plate  200  is  introduced  to  make  plain  the  intimate  struc- 
ture of  this  species  of  coiling  with  short  stems  of  soft  rushes 
over  grass  foundation.  The  methods  of  inserting  figures, 
bordering,  and  fastening  off  are  evident  in  the  illustration. 

Plate  201,  from  photographs  by  C.  C.  Willoughby,  presents 
two  very  ancient  tray-shaped  baskets  or  plaques  from  the  cave 
in  San  Martin  Mountains,  Los  Angeles  County,  California, 
which  were  collected  by  Stephen  Bowers.  The  Catalogue  No. 


43° 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


is  39,245,  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cambridge,  Massachusetts. 
(See  also  Plate  202.) 

The  upper  figure  is  a  fine  old  example  of  coiled  weaving 
in    the   three-rod   type,     the    stitch   interlocking   with    the 

upper  element. 

The  lower  figure  is  an 
example  of  the  same  kind 
of  coiling,  but  the  surface 
has  been  covered  with 
asphalt,  so  that  the 
texture  is  almost  totally 
obliterated. 

Twined  weaving  is  not 
so  common  as  coiled  work 
in  southern  California. 
One  could  scarcely  con- 
ceive a  more  primitive 
specimen,  however,  than 
is  shown  in  fig.  178, 
from  the  Dieguenos  In- 
dians (Yuman  family) 
living  about  San  Diego, 
California.  The  specimen 
is  a  basket  for  cactus 
fruit.  The  warp  is 
gathered  singly  or  in 
pairs  in  the  twists  of  the  weft.  Old  specimens  of  twined 
weaving  from  the  region,  on  the  contrary,  are  finely  wrought. 
Plate  203  represents  a  sack  in  twined  weaving,  collected  at 
Mesa  Grande,  on  the  Mission  Indian  Reservation,  in  southern 
California,  by  Mrs.  Watkins,  the  Government  teacher  there, 
and  sent  to  the  National  Museum  by  Miss  Constance  Goddard 
DuBois.  The  dark  threads  are  said  by  Mrs.  Watkins  to  be 
made  from  the  inner  bark  of  Asdepias  vestita,  and  the  lighter 
threads,  in  which  the  decorative  bands  are  worked,  from 


FIG.  178. 
TWINED  BASKET. 

Dieguenos  Indians. 

Cat.  No.  19.742.  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by 
Edward  Palmer. 


Plate  202.     See  page  430 

ANCIENT  COILED  BASKETS,  FROM  SAN  MARTIN  MOUNTAIN,  CAL.,  IN  PEABODY 

MUSEUM 

Photographed  by  C.  C.  Willoughby 


Plate  203.     See  page  430 

RARE  OLD  TWINED  SACK,    MESA   GRAN-OB   MISSION,   CAL 
Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF    BASKETRY  431 

Asclepias  ascicularis.  It  is  a  very  ancient  piece,  the  only  one 
that  had  been  seen  in  those  parts.  Narciso  Lachapa,  whose 
father  owned  it,  says  it  was  old  when  he  was  a  boy. 

The  majority  of  baskets  from  the  Mission  region  are  in  coiled 
weaving.  A  few  examples  of  twined  weaving  from  this  area 
have  been  seen  in  collections,  but  none  equalling  this  in  size 
and  beauty.  Its  height  is  29  inches.  Miss  DuBois  adds  that 
the  Mission  Indians  in  the  more  remote  regions  wear  basket 
hats,  most  of  them  in  twined  weaving,  and  others  of  an  older 
type  in  coiled  stitch.  There  is  an  old  tale  that  "two  sisters 
went  on  the  mountain  and  found  little  sticks  which  they  wove 
into  baby  baskets.  They  put  the  babies  in  and  made  pillows 
for  their  heads.  Then  the  elder  sister,  who  was  a  witch  doctor, 
held  up  her  hand  to  the  North  and  received  a  roughly  made 
basket,  which  she  put  on  the  elder  baby's  head.  Then  she  held 
up  her  hand  to  the  South  and  received  a  fine  basket,  which  she 
put  upon  the  younger  baby's  head." 

THE  INTERIOR  BASIN  REGION 

Not  the  hands,  but  reason,  teaches  mankind  arts;  but  the 
hands  are  the  instruments  of  arts,  as  the  lyre  is  of  the  musician 
and  the  forceps  are  of  the  mechanic. — GALEN. 

Leaving  now  the  Pacific  slope,  we  may  examine  the  bas- 
ketry of  the  Great  Interior  Basin,  bounded  on  the  east  by  the 
Siouan,  Kiowan,  and  Caddoan  families  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  The  Siouan  tribes,  together  with  the  western 
Algonquian  and  other  tribes  wedged  in  among  them,  borrow 
coiled  gambling  baskets  and  substitute  the  convenient  buffalo 
hide  for  textiles;  but  the  Caddoan  (see  figs.  124  and  125)  were 
excellent  workers  in  twilled  weaving. 

On  the  north,  this  basketry  area  merges  into  the  Fraser- 
Columbian  group,  Salishan  and  Shahaptian  tribes  chiefly,  who 
are  especially  skilful  in  twined  work  of  peculiar  types.  The 
soft  hat  in  wrapped  twined  work,  and  almost  all  of  the  twined 
wallet  overlaid,  predominate  with  the  Shahaptian,  but  the 
Salish  have  a  wide  range  of  technic. 


432  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

On  the  west  there  is  no  sharp  boundary  line,  as  will  be  soon 
shown,  the  Interior  Basin  region  and  the  Oregon-California 
fitting  into  and  invading  each  other  as  shore  and  water  line 
on  an  irregular  coast.  This  will  be  especially  noticeable  with 
coiled  work,  the  three-rod  foundation  of  California  being 
adopted  by  some  Ute  tribes. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  southern  boundary,  the  linguistic 
families  dovetailing  into  those  of  Mexico.  The  Apache  cross 
the  boundary  southward,  the  Yuman  and  Piman  tribes  also 
reaching  northward  and  excelling  in  coiled  ware  with  fine  grass 
foundation. 

The  tribal  or  ethnic  groups  in  this  area  are  chiefly  the  Sho- 
shonean  and  the  Athapascan.  The  first  named  is  a  vast  lin- 
guistic family  reaching  from  near  the  forty-ninth  parallel  to 
Costa  Rica;  the  latter,  quite  as  widespread,  extending  between 
30°  and  70°  north.  Care  must  again  be  taken  to  separate  the 
classific  concept  of  language  from  that  of  blood  kinship  or  of 
arts.  Where  people  live  contiguous  and  have  the  same  speech, 
their  blood  becomes  mingled  as  a  matter  of  course.  Arts  will 
also  be  communicated.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  one  here 
considered,  being  a  woman's  craft.  The  Athapascan  occupies 
the  southern  portion  of  the  Basin,  and  the  Pueblos  are  most 
of  them  in  northern  Arizona  and  New  Mexico. 

SHOSHONEAN  AND  PUEBLO  BASKETRY 

By  far  the  largest  part  of  the  Interior  Basin  is  Shoshonean. 
The  tribes  also  spread  out  far  to  the  north  in  the  drainage  of 
the  Snake  River;  have  pushed  themselves  across  the  Rocky 
Mountains  on  the  southeast  into  the  drainage  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  on  the  western  side  occupied  a  large  part  of  south- 
ern California,  as  was  shown.  The  basket-making  tribes  are 
the  Shoshoni  in  Idaho;  the  Ute,  with  many  subdivisions,  in 
Colorado  and  Utah;  the  Paiute  in  western  Nevada  and  Cali- 
fornia adjoining.  As  before  intimated,  both  exclusions  and 
inclusions  of  the  term  are  undefined. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  433 

This  great  stock  of  Indians  employs  both  structures,  the 
woven  and  the  coiled.  The  twined  weave  of  all  kinds  is  used 
in  conoidal  basket  hats,  baskets,  jars  and  bottles,  roasting  trays, 
and  wands.  The  coiled  and  whipped  structure  is  used  in  pitched 
water  bottles,  trays,  and  bowls.  The  hat  is  a  conical  basket 
made  of  splints,  the  warp  radiating  from  the  apex,  the  woof 
splints  being  carried  around  and  twined  in  pairs,  generally  in 
diagonal  weave.  The  woof  is  not  so  thoroughly  driven  home 
as  in  softer  and  more  pliant  material,  but  remains  open  so  as 
to  have  the  appearance  of  the  osier  weaving  of  the  East.  Sim- 
ple ornamentation  is  produced  by  using  one  or  more  rows  of 
red  or  black  splints  in  elementary  geometric  patterns. 

Roasting  trays  are  shaped  like  a  scoop  rimmed  with  a  large 
twig.  The  warp  is  made  of  parallel  twigs  laid  close  together 
and  held  in  place  by  diagonal  twining.  The  Shoshonean  tribes 
place  seeds  of  wild  plants,  with  hot  stones,  in  these  trays,  and 
thus  roast  them.  Some  specimens  are  much  charred  on  the 
upper  side.  (In  the  Ute  country  could  be  seen  Indian  women 
gathering  seeds  in  conical  baskets,  beating  the  heads  of  the 
plants  with  a  spoon-shaped  wand  toward  the  basket  held  in  the 
left  hand,  with  its  mouth  just  under  the  plants.)  These  bas- 
kets are  constructed  in  every  respect  like  the  conoidal  hats, 
and  the  fans  are  made  of  twigs  coarsely  woven  on  the  same 
pattern. 

The  water  bottles  of  the  Shoshonean  tribes,  on  the  other 
hand,  belong  to  the  coiled  and  whipped  structure.  As  before 
mentioned,  this  style  can  be  made  coarse  or  fine,  according  to 
the  material,  the  size  of  the  coil,  and  of  the  outer  thread.  These 
bottles  differ  in  shape — one  class  has  round  bottoms,  another 
long,  pointed  bottoms;  one  has  wide  mouths,  another  small 
mouths ;  one  class  has  a  little  osier  handle  on  the  side  of  the 
mouth,  like  a  pitcher;  but  the  majority  have  one  or  two  loops 
of  wood,  horsehair,  or  osier  fastened  on  one  side  for  carrying. 
All  of  them  are  quite  heavy,  having  been  dipped  in  pitch. 
The  same  form  is  found  among  the  Apache,  the  Hopi,  and  the 


434 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


Rio  Grande  pueblos,  but  it  is  not  improbable  that  they  were 
obtained  from  the  Ute.  These  bottle-shaped  baskets  are  used 
for  small  granaries  as  well — to  hold  seeds  and  keep  them 
away  from  vermin. 

The  basket  trays  of  the  Ute  do  not  differ  essentially  in  gen- 
eral style  from  those  of  the  Gila  River  or  California  tribes,  but 
they  are  much  coarser.  Among  the  coiled  basket  trays  in  the 
collection  accredited  to  the  Ute  are  indeed  two  styles,  but  one 
of  them  resembles  so  much  those  of  their  Apache  neighbours 


FIG.  179. 

WOMAN'S  HAT. 

Ute  Indians,  Utah. 

Cat.  No.  11,838.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 


on  the  south  as  to  raise  the  suspicion  that  they  were  obtained 
by  barter. 

The  typical  styles  here  mentioned,  as  well  as  interesting 
variations,  will  be  best  understood  from  examples. 

The  National  Museum  has  a  rare  old  collection  of  Ute  or 
Shoshonean  material,  of  which  A.  H.  Thompson  writes  that  of 
the  baskets  and  other  articles  of  Indian  manufacture  gathered 
by  the  Powell  expeditions  between  1870  and  1875,  the  greater 
part,  probably  nine-tenths,  was  secured  from  the  Kaivavits  at 
Kaibab  and  the  Shivwits  about  St.  George,  southern  Utah, 
and  the  Moapas  about  St.  Thomas,  southeastern  Nevada. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY 


435 


These  clans  all  belong  to  the  Paiute  nation.     (The  articles 

secured  from  the  Ute  were  from  the  Gosiute  about  Deep  Creek 

in  western  Utah  and  the  Uinta  Ute 

on  the  Uinta  Reservation.)  Much  of 

the  clothing   (buckskin  and  rabbit 

fur)  and  many  of  the  baskets  were 

made  by  the  Indians  working  un- 

der the  direction,  or  rather  observa- 

tion, of  Mrs.  E.  P.  Thompson,  the 

endeavour  being  to  have  the  work 

done  by  the  methods  employed  be- 

fore the  coming  of  the  whites  and  by 

the  older  people  of  the  clans. 

Fig.  179  is  a  hat  of  a  Ute  Indian 
woman,  in  diagonal  twined  work. 
The  warp  stems  converge  at  the  top, 
and  additional  ones  are  added  as  the 
texture  widens.  The  weft  splints 
are  twined  so  as  to  include  the  ver- 
tical warp  twigs  in  pairs.  On  the 
next  round  the  warp  elements  are 
again  inclosed  in  pairs,  but  not  in 
corresponding  ones  to  those  of  the 
row  underneath.  The  lines  of  the 
weft  elements  ascend  diagonally,  and 
a  twilled  effect  is  produced  on  the 
surface.  This  form  of  twining  must 
not  be  confounded  with  three-ply 
twine  around  the  border,  which  has 
a  somewhat  similar  appearance,  but 
is  so  close  that  the  warp  stems  do  not  Cat-  No-  'i'8*3  ™  '  nN'M,;  Collected 

by  J.  W.  Powell. 

show.     The  border  of  this  Ute  basket 

is  ingeniously  made.  First,  the  projecting  warp  elements  are 
bent  and  whipped  in  place  with  splints,  to  form  the  body  of  the 
rim;  on  the  top  of  this  the  weaver  sews  an  ornamental  false 


FIG  i8o. 


ufahi 


436 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


braid,  catching  the  splint  into  the  bent  warp  stems  underneath. 
The  ornamentation  on  the  outside  is  produced  by  three-strand 
monochrome  or  dichrome  weaving.  The  Utes  are  skilful  in 
various  methods  of  technic,  but  the  materials  in  which  they 
work  are  coarse  and  rigid,  giving  a  rough  appearance  to  the 
surface.  The  hats  are  used  also  as  receptacles,  so  that  the 
terms  top  and  bottom  are  only  relative  to  function. 

Fig.  1 80  is  a  harvesting  fan  of  the  Paiutes,  made  of  small 
stems,  split  or  whole,  and  bound  together  with  various  fibers, 


FIG.  181. 

HARVESTING   FANS. 

Paiute  Indians,  Utah. 

Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 


the  manual  portion  being  wrapped  with  softer  material. 
This  very  coarse  specimen  is  represented  in  other  tribes, 
especially  on  the  western  side  of  the  Sierras,  by  finely 
woven,  spoon-shaped  harvesting  wands.  It  is  Catalogue 
No.  11,823  m  tne  United  States  National  Museum,  collected 
in  Utah  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Fig.  181  is  a  pair  of  harvesting  fans  of  the  Paiute  Indians 
in  southern  Utah.  A  bundle  of  rods  is  fastened  together  to 
form  the  grip  of  the  fan ;  the  other  ends  of  these  rods  are  then 
spread  out,  and  afterward  brought  together  to  a  point,  at 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


437 


the  same  time  bent  downward  in  spoon  form  for  a  warp. 
These  are  held  in  place  by  a  continuous  twined  weaving  back- 
ward and  forward,  the  rows  being  at  irregular  intervals. 
Near  the  end,  the  points  are  held  together  by  compact  twined 
weaving.  The  border  is  made  by  coiled  work  built  up  on  a 
pair  of  strong  rods.  These  interesting  objects  are  not  con- 
fined, as  will  be 
seen,  to  the  Ute  In- 
dians, but  all  the 
tribes  in  California, 
Nevada,  and  Ari- 
zona that  depend 
upon  the  smaller 
seeds  for  their  sus- 
tenance have  the 
same  method  of 
beating  the  ripe 
grass  into  a  conical 
carrying  basket. 
The  fans  of  this 
type,  perhaps,  form 
the  very  earliest 
harvesting  device. 

Associated  with 
the  harvesting  fan 
is  the  gathering  and 
carrying  basket 
and  the  roasting 
or  winnowing  tray. 

Catalogue  Nos.  11,817  and  11,822  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  procured  in  Utah  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Figs.  182  to  184  illustrate  a  gathering  basket  of  the  Paiute 
Indians.  The  first,  fig.  182,  represents  the  entire  structure, 
which  is  at  basis  open  twined  work.  The  noticeable  feature 
about  this  piece  is  the  treatment  of  the  warp,  which,  instead 


FIG.  183. 
GATHERING  BASKET. 

Paiute  Indians.  Utah. 
Cat.  No.  14,688.  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


FIG.  183. 
BOTTOM  OF  FIG.  182. 


of  rising  perpendicularly  from  the  bottom  to  the  top,  is  twisted 
to  the  left,  each  radial  element  of  the  warp  making  about 
one-fourth  of  a  turn  from  the  vertical.  Again,  the  technic 

is  diagonal  weaving  in 
twined  work.  The  divert- 
ing of  the  warp  from  the 
vertical  is  not  common  in 
twined  weaving,  but  occurs 
quite  frequently  in  this 
area  and  among  the 
Shoshonean  family. 

Fig.  183  gives  a  good 
notion  of  the  way  in  which 
the  bottom  is  started.  Four 
pairs  of  warp  stems  consti- 
tute the  base.  These  are 
held  in  place  by  very  coarse 

twined  weaving.     The  ends  of  the  stems  are  bent  to  become 
the  warp  of  the  body.     The  upper  border  of  the  basket  shows 
how  the  warp  stems  are  bent  down  to  the  left ;  a  bundle  of 
splints  laid  on  top  and 
sewed  as  in  coiled  weav- 
ing (fig.    184).      On   the 
top  of  this  a  stout  rod 
is  sewed  by  another  turn 
of  the  same  process,   so 
that    both    coiled   work 
and  twined  work  are  to 
be   seen   in   this    coarse 
bit    of    everyday    ware. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  14,688  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Utah  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Fig.  185  is  a  harvesting  and  carrying  basket  of  the  Paiutes 
in  diagonal  twined  weaving,  precisely  as  in  fig.  179,  repre- 
senting a  Ute  woman's  hat,  and  fig.  180,  the  fanning  tray. 


FIG.  184. 
BORDER  OF  FIG.  i8a. 


Plate  207.      See  page  444 

COILED  PLAQUE  OF  THE  ANCIENT  BASKET-MAKERS,  CLIFFS  OF 
SOUTHEASTERN  UTAH 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY 


439 


The  bottom  is  covered  with  hide  to  protect  it,  and  on  the  body 
is  fastened  a  head  band  used  in  carrying.  The  ornamenta- 
tion on  many  Ute  specimens  seems  to  have  been  effected  by 
charring,  since  the  figures  do  not  appear  on  the  inside  at  all. 
The  Ute  Indians  make  use  of  many  kinds  of  seeds  in  their 
dietary.  The  women  go  out  into  the  plains  with  this  carry- 
ing basket  and  the  fan,  illustrated  in  Fig.  181.  The  apex  of 


FIG.  185. 
CARRYING  BASKET. 

Paiute  Indians,  Utah. 
Cat.  No.  14,667,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

the  carrying  basket  is  rested  on  the  ground,  and  the  seeds  are 
beaten  into  it  by  means  of  the  gathering  fan.  When  the  bas- 
ket is  full,  the  woman  places  the  band  across  her  forehead, 
rests  the  receptacle  on  her  back,  and  trudges  home  with  her 
load. 

Catalogue  Nos.  14,667  to  14,746  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum  were  procured  in  Utah  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Fig.  1 86  is  called  a  roasting  or  fanning  tray  of  the  Paiutes, 


440  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

being  used  for  the  purpose  of  separating  the  chaff  from  the 
seeds  which  have  been  gathered,  either  by  blowing  or  roasting. 
The  warp  is  a  lot  of  twigs  spread  out  like  a  fan.  The  weaving 
begins  at  the  inner  or  manual  end,  which  is  the  bottom  of  the 
illustration,  with  short  curves,  and  progresses  by  ever  widen- 
ing rows  to  the  outer  margin.  The  rim  is  produced  by  a 
double  row  of  coiled  and  whipped  work.  The  whole  surface 


FIG.  186. 

ROASTING   TRAY. 

Paiute  Indians,  Utah. 

Cat.  No.  11.857.  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

is  very  rough  by  reason  of  the  nature  of  the  material  which 
these  people  living  in  a  desert  region  have  to  use. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  11,857  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Utah  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Fig.  187  is  a  coiled  seed  jar  of  the  Paiute  Indians.  It 
belongs  to  the  type  of  coiled  work  called  two-rod — that  is,  the 
foundation  of  the  coil  work  consists  of  two  stems,  one  above 
the  other.  The  stitches  pass  around  these  two  and  under 


Plate  208.     See  page  444 

COILED  BOWL  OF  THE  ANCIENT  BASKET-MAKERS,  CLIFFS  OF 
SOUTHEASTERN  UTAH 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus  of  Nat.  Hist..  N.  Y. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


441 


one  of  the  foundation  underneath  and  interlock.  Baskets  of 
this  kind  are  frequent ly  .dipped  into  hot  gum  or  pitch  of  some 
kind,  varying  in  different  localities.  The  peculiar  effect  of 
this  sort  of  weaving  is  to  hide  one  of  the  rods  in  the  founda- 
tion and  to  reveal  the  other.  Frequently,  the  upper  one  in 
each  pair  is  smaller,  and  by  driving  the  stitches  close  home  a 
tolerably  close  and  very  enduring  structure  is  the  result. 


FIG.  187. 

COILED  JAR. 

Paiute  Indians,  Utah. 

Cat.  No.  1 1.362,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell. 

Pottery  was  made  by  the  ancient  Utes,  but  is  not  now 
common.  The  basket  bottle  is  much  more  useful  and 
enduring.  A  square  inch  from  the  surface  of  this  bottle  is 
shown  in  fig.  188. 

Catalogue  No.  11,262  in  the  United  States  National  Mu- 
seum was  collected  by  J.  W.  Powell,  together  with  Nos. 
11,249  to  11,261. 


442  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Plate  204  presents  two  figures  from  different  localities, 
but  having  essentially  the  same  form,  structure,  and  function. 
That  on  the  left,  Catalogue  No.  19,029  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  is  a  fine  old  water  jar  made  by  a  Coyuwee 
Paiute  woman,  Pyramid  Lake,  Nevada;  secured  by  Stephen 
Powers.  It  is  a  model  of  uniformity  in  technic.  The  twilled 
weaving  in  twined  technic  is  laid  up  as  regularly  as  brick- 
work. There  is  no  attempt  at  ornament,  either  in  colour  or 
variety  in  weaving.  The  pine  gum  is  applied  so  carefully 

that  it  does  not  hide,  but  empha- 
sises, the  workmanship.  The  lugs 
are  of  braided  horsehair.  Its  height 
is  fifteen  inches. 

The  right-hand  figure,  No.  2,610, 
is  labelled  "Pueblo  Indians,"  but  it 
was  evidently  made  by  a  Ute 
woman.  The  pitch  has  worn  off 
sufficiently  to  reveal  the  process  of 
SQUARE  INCH'  OF  FIG.  187.  making  the  other.  Note,  first, 

the   twilled   weaving   in   openwork. 

The  twists  of  the  weft  each  include  two  of  the  warp  stems. 
On  the  next  round  the  same  two  are  not  included;  they  are 
separated,  to  be  joined  again  in  the  next  row  above.  Now,  if 
the  woman  had  pressed  her  weft  close  home,  she  would  have 
produced  exactly  the  same  effect  as  may  be  seen  on  the  left- 
hand  figure,  a  close  twill.  Observe,  however,  that  at  the 
widest  part  of  the  body  she  has  introduced  one  round  of  three - 
strand  twine.  Two  rows  of  the  same  form  the  lower  boundary 
of  the  neck,  which  is  done  carelessly  in  plain  weaving.  Col- 
lected by  W.  L.  Hardesty. 

Nordenskjold  found  in  the  cliff  dwellings  of  the  south- 
western United  States: 
.    i.  Checkerwork  in  heavy,  coarse  sandals. 

2.  Wickerwork.  This  may  be  seen  also  in  Hopi 
basketry. 


Plate  zoo.     See  page  444 

COILED  BOWLS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  BASKET-MAKERS,  CLIFFS  OF 
SOUTHEASTERN  UTAH 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  443 

3.  Diagonal  or  twilled  weaving,  common  in  Hopi  pueblo 
especially. 

4.  Matting  of  rod  strung  on  twine.     Apaches  and  Hopi 
now  use  it.     (See  fig.  103.) 

5.  Braiding  in  the  flat  and  in  the  round. 

6.  Twined  weaving  in  many  forms. 

7.  Three-rod  coil  foundation  (Bam-shi-bu). 

8.  Coiled    network,    the    spirals    twisted    on   themselves. 
(Compare  Muskemoot,  Plate  102.) 

9.  Sandals  with  knots  of  various  patterns  in  the  lacing. 
In  a  paper  by  Dr.  George  H.  Pepper,*  attention  is  called 

to  a  cliff  people  formerly  living  in  Grand  Gulch  region  of  south- 
eastern Utah  called  the  "Basketmakers."  They  are  shown 
to  have  worn  beautiful  robes  of  feathers  and  of  rabbit  skins 
woven,  and  sandals  of  yucca  fiber  squared  in  front,  and  to 
have  had  little  or  no  pottery.  They  fought  with  "atlatls" 
rather  than  bows,  and  hunted  with  the  Hopi  rabbit  stick. 
Most  interesting  of  all,  they  lived  in  caves,  but  not  in  stone 
houses.  In  some  of  the  caves  the  houses  of  the  Cliff-dwellers 
have  been  found  overlying  the  remains  of  the  earlier  Basket  - 
makers.  The  bodies  of  the  dead  were  doubled  up,  placed  at 
the  bottom  of  potholes  or  granaries,  some  of  which  were  lined 
with  baked  clay,  covered  with  robes  and  finally  with  baskets, 
either  several  small  ones  or  one  large  carrying  basket.  The 
last-named  feature  is  said  to  have  been  almost  invariably  in 
evidence,  and  it  is  to  this  that  attention  is  here  given.  The 
material  is  willow,  the  designs  on  the  baskets  being  in  splints 
of  black  or  a  peculiar  dull  red.  The  bottoms  of  the  carrying 
baskets  were  reinforced  with  heavy  yucca  cord.  The  borders 
were  finished  with  the  ordinary  coiled  stitch,  but  in  some  the 
last  inch  or  two  are  finished  off  with  false  braid  or  herring-bone. 
One  example  of  Dr.  Pepper's,  called  openwork  or  sifter 
basket,  has  a  single  rod  foundation,  and  the  wrapping  at  one 

*  The  Ancient  Basket  Makers  of  Southeastern   Utah,  Guide  Leaflet 
No.  6  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  1902. 


444  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

turn  passes  around  the  foundation  only;  at  the  next  it  is 
drawn  under  the  rod  in  the  coil  below,  and  returning  is  wrapped 
about  itself  or  "the  standing  part,"  as  the  sailors  say.  The 
ordinary  Japanese  lunch  baskets,  Samoan  basketwork,  and 
those  from  the  Strait  of  Magellan  are  on  the  same  plan.  But 
it  is  certainly  a  rare  sight  in  this  part  of  the  world. 

Plates  205  and  206  are  from  the  Pepper  collection  of  coiled 
basketry  from  the  caves  of  the  ancient  Basketmakers.  The 
particular  specimens  will  be  described  under  separate  photo- 
graphs of  each  one,  but  the  group  shows  both  the  forms  and 
functions  of  the  material  gathered  at  this  interesting  locality 
in  southeastern  Utah. 

Plate  207  is  a  coiled  tray,  having  as  design  two  circles  of 
figures  resembling  aquatic  birds  floating  on  the  water.  This  is 
an  excellent  opportunity  to  speculate  about  the  relation  of 
this  desert  region  with  prayers  to  the  water  god. 

Plate  208  is  another  coiled  tray  from  the  cave-dwellers, 
with  an  ornamental  design,  showing  two  sinuous  rings  in  black. 

Plate  209  contains  two  bowls  apparently  with  the  three- 
rod  coil,  such  as  is  now  common  among  the  best  basketmakers 
of  California.  The  ornamentation  is  also  suggestive  of  the 
same  locality.  On  the  upper  figure  are  four  radial  designs 
triangular  in  outline,  two  having  their  bases  at  the  bottom 
and  two  on  the  outer  border,  each  pattern  made  up  of  fringe- 
work  of  triangles,  reminding  one  of  the  strings  of  arrowhead 
patterns  mentioned  by  Dr.  Dixon  in  his  pamphlet  on  the 
Maidu.  The  lower  figure  is  similarly  constructed  in  coiled 
weaving,  the  ornamentation  being  in  circular  patterns;  the 
bottom  is  plain;  then  follow  narrow  rings  in  black,  a  broad 
ring  in  white,  a  broad  band  with  seven  triangular  rays,  a  nar- 
row band  in  black,  and  a  broad  band  in  the  natural  colour  of 
the  wood. 

Plate  210  is  interesting  as  showing  the  function  of  the 
baskets  which  were  found  in  the  Utah  cave.  All  of  them 
have  relation  to  food.  They  are  in  twilled  and  coiled  weav- 


Plate  210.     See  page  444 

FOOD  VESSELS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  BASKET-MAKERS,  CLIFFS  OF 
SOUTHEASTERN  UTAH 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  445 

ing,  and  show  how  in  ancient  times  the  basket  entered  into 
the  service  of  these  agricultural  Indians. 

Plate  211  shows  a  mortar  basket  of  the  ancient  basket- 
makers  in  coiled  weaving  on  splint  foundation.  It  is  not 
possible  to  determine  the  material  of  the  stitches.  It  is  13 
inches  in  diameter  and  3^  inches  deep.  The  interior  is  coated 
with  meal,  and  the  surface  of  the  sewing  is  worn  through  from 
long  use.  Mortar  baskets  are  common  among  the  California 
tribes,  both  in  twined  weaving  and  in  coiled  work.  A  speci- 
men quite  similar  to  the  one  here  shown  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum  has  a  coiled  basket  top,  cemented  to  the 
shallow  mortar  stone  underneath  by  means  of  pitch.  The 
specimens  are  in  the  collection  of  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History. 

Pepper  describes  four  varieties  of  sandals  among  the 
ancient  Cliff-dwellers — thin  soles  in  twilled  weaving  from 
narrow  leaves  of  yucca;  those  made  of  broad  leaves  split; 
a  padded  variety  made  from  the  same  leaves  shredded;  and 
an  exceedingly  fine  kind,  of  spun  fiber  and  worked  into  ele- 
gant patterns.  In  these  last  the  warp  is  in  two  or  more  layers 
or  plies,  so  that  the  body  is  thick  and  durable.  He  quotes 
Richard  Wetherill  to  the  effect  that  while  the  chamber-building 
Cliff-dwellers  wove  the  sandal  with  pointed  toes  and  a  jog  or 
step  a  few  inches  from  the  toe,  those  of  the  Basketmakers 
were  square  in  front.  McLoyd  and  Graham  assert  that  square- 
toed  sandals  were  made  by  the  people  that  inhabited  the 
underground  rooms,  since  they  are  found  only  with  mummies 
of  that  race.  No  square-toed  sandals  are  found  in  caves  where 
remains  of  the  Basket  Makers  do  not  exist.  From  their  variety 
of  weaving  in  soft  materials,  the  Cliff-dwellers  are  to  be 
traced  to  Mexico  for  their  origin. 

The  term  Pueblo  basketmaker  is  far  from  specific.  It 
applies  to  women  of  all  the  settled  villages  in  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona,  from  Taos  on  the  Rio  Grande,  in  the  former,  to 
the  Hopi  in  the  latter.  The  peoples  belong  to  the  Tanoan  and 


446  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Keresan  families  on  the  Rio  Grande,  to  the  Zunian  in  western 
New  Mexico,  and  the  Hopean  or  Shoshonean  in  Arizona.* 

Far  back  in  time  those  structures  whose  ruins  furnish 
inexhaustible  supplies  of  pottery  and  some  textiles  have  also 
to  tell  the  tale  as  to  the  ancient  types  of  basketry.  At  the 
present  moment,  great  confusion  exists  concerning  the  ethnic 
significance  of  basketry  found  in  the  pueblos.  Beautiful  old 
pieces,  about  which  there  is  little  information,  came  twenty 
years  or  more  ago  from  these  villages.  James  Stevenson 
wrote  then  that  the  women  of  the  villages  were  fond  of  secur- 
ing in  trade  and  hoarding  rare  forms  and  weaves.  The  best 
that  can  be  now  done  is  to  classify  Pueblo  basketry  as  follows : 

(1)  What  the  women  are  actually  making  and  old  material 
precisely  like  it. 

(2)  Specimens  dug  from  sites  of  old  pueblos  and  carefully 
labelled. 

(3)  Old  materials  stored  up  in  the  modern  pueblos,  handed 
down  from  the  past,  whose  authorship  is  not  known. 

If  all  this  material  could  be  assembled,  a  variety  of  techni- 
cal processes  would  be  revealed,  some  of  them  common  over 
wide  areas  and  a  few  characteristic  of  the  pueblo  culture.  The 
following  weaves  are  among  the  list : 

(1)  Checker  weaving,  rare. 

(2)  Wicker  weaving,  coarse  and  fine. 

(3)  Twilled  work,  in  hard  stems  and  in  yucca. 

(4)  Twined  work  of  many  kinds  on  old  baskets.     Thought 
to  be  intrusive. 

(5)  Coiled  work  with  foundation  of  stems,  splints,  grass, 
and  shredded  leaves. 

The  fine  wicker  and  the  thick  coiled  plaques  are  peculiar. 
The  great  variety  mentioned  is  quite  as  much  between  pueblos 
as  between  these  and  tribes  outside.  The  Hopi  are  note- 

*  For  a  list  of  pueblos,  see  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
Ethnology,  under  the  words  Keresan,  Shoshonean,  Tanoan,  and  Zunian; 
for  ruins,  see  bibliography  under  Fewkes,  Hough,  Keam,  Mindeleff. 


Plate  211.     See  page  445 

HOPPER  FOR  MORTAR,  ANCIENT  BASKET-MAKERS  OF  CLIFFS  ix 
SOUTHEASTERN   UTAH 

Collections  of  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y. 


biiuol 


Plate  212.     See  page  447 

SIA  ANCIENT  COILED  BASKETS 

They  are  among  the  rarest  of  baskets,  and  are  like  those  which  have  been  found 
in  the  cliff  house  ruins 

Collected  by  James  Stevenson 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  447 

worthy  in  this  regard,  having  in  their  hands  the  making  of  the 
two  unique  kinds  of  weave  in  their  sacred  meal  plaques.  A 
better  insight  into  these  differences  will  be  gained  by  an  exami- 
nation of  specimens. 

Plate  212  represents  two  ancient  coiled  basket  jars  col- 
lected at  the  pueblo  of  Sia,  on  the  Jemez  River,  a  tributary 
of  the  Rio  Grande  in  New  Mexico.  The  Indians  of  this  pueblo 
belong  to  the  Keresan  family.  The  characteristics  to  be 
observed  and  studied  on  these  specimens  are  the  following: 
The  foundation  is  of  splints,  the  sewing  is  done  with  willow 
or  rhus,  and  the  stitches  are  just  barely  carried  around  a  small 
portion  of  the  foundation  underneath,  where  they  are  inter- 
locked. Note  also  that  the  ornamentation — an  ascending 
spiral — is  in  one  case  a  rhombic  figure  and  in  the  other  is 
built  up  of  little  rectangles  formed  by  counting  stitches,  which 
may  be  few  or  many,  as  the  curve  on  the  body  of  the  basket 
expands  or  contracts.  This  mingling  of  very  simple  elemen- 
tary forms  is  capable  of  an  infinite  variety  in  treatment. 

The  attention  of  the  student  is  especially  called  to  the 
margins  of  these  baskets,  which  appear  to  be  in  a  three-strand 
plait ;  but  they  are  really  done  in  a  single  splint  which  passes 
backward  over  the  foundation,  then  under  and  forward, 
inclosing  the  rod  underneath,  forming  a  figure  8,  and  the  mul- 
tiplication of  this  produces  on  the  surface  the  braided  ap- 
pearance. For  detail,  see  page  126,  fig.  87.  Catalogue  Nos. 
134,214,  134,215.  Collected  by  James  Stevenson. 

Although  there  may  be  seen  at  the  pueblo  of  Zufii  all  sorts 
of  baskets,  the  most  of  them  include  pitched  bottles  for  water, 
coiled  and  whipped  trays,  Hopi  coiled  and  water  basket  trays ; 
but  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  they  were  necessarily  made 
there.  The  only  work  made  by  the  Zuni  nowadays  is  their 
small,  rough  peach  baskets  of  twigs  and  wickerwork,  hardly 
worthy  of  notice  except  for  their  ugliness  and  simplicity. 
Those  who  are  familiar  with  this  interesting  tribe  of  Indians 
say  that  trading  is  a  passion  with  them,  and  that  through 


448  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

their  agricultural  products  and  their  refined  loomwork  they 
are  able  to  gratify  among  the  surrounding  tribes  this  taste 
for  old  basketry,  examples  of  which  are  stored  away,  and 
brought  out  on  special  occasions. 

Plate  213  shows  some  old  so-called  Zuni  ware,  collected 
for  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology  by  James  Stevenson, 
in  New  Mexico,  long  ago. 

Fig.  i  is  a  wicker  basket  of  globular  form.  The  warp  con- 
sists of  a  number  of  stems  of  Chrysothamnus  laid  flat.  The 
weft  of  the  same  material  is  in  wickerwork,  the  border  being 
fastened  down  in  coiled  sewing  with  yucca  leaf.  Handle,  a 
rawhide  thong.  Used  by  these  Indians  in  gathering  fruit 
and  other  food  substances.  Height,  8  inches.  Cat.  No.  68,603, 
U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  2  is  a  jar-shaped  basket  of  Chrysothamnus  (Bigelovia) 
splints.  The  warp  is  radiating  at  the  bottom  and  parallel  on 
the  body ;  the  whole  basket  is  made  in  twilled  style  of  twined 
weaving  over  two.  The  border  is  not  finished  off.  The  han- 
dle is  a  rawhide  thong  around  the  neck.  This  is  a  very  coarse 
specimen  of  twined  work.  The  height  is  8  inches.  Cat.  No. 
68,480,  U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  3  is  a  rare  and  interesting  specimen  of  a  twined  basket 
jar.  The  bottom  has  radiating  warp  and  is  in  coarse  twilled 
weaving,  but  the  body  from  the  bottom  to  the  upper  margin 
is  plain,  twined  weaving,  without  variation.  There  is  not 
in  the  National  Museum  collection  from  this  Pueblo  region 
another  basket  in  which  the  whole  body  is  treated  in  this 
monotonous  manner.  Its  height  is  8£  inches.  Cat.  No. 
68,513,  U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  4  is  a  water-tight  jar  from  the  Zuni  Indians.  The 
whole  surface  of  the  object  is  in  the  twilled  type  of  twined 
weaving  and  well  saturated  in  pitch.  The  characteristic 
features  are  the  lugs  of  wood  on  the  side  for  the  carrying  strap, 
and  flattening  of  the  surface  between  these  lugs,  as  in  a  can- 
teen. This  is  partially  shown  in  the  photographs,  but  is  quite 


Plate  213.     See  page  448 

OLD  WICKER  AND  TWINED  BASKETS  FROM  THE  4    s 

PUEBLO  OF  ZUNI,  NEW  MEXICO  6 

Collections  of  U.  S.  Vational  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  449 

apparent  on  the  jar  itself.  Its  height  is  9  inches.  Cat.  No. 
68,515,  U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  5  is  a  water-tight  basket  jar,  constricted  in  the  middle 
for  the  attachment  of  a  carrying  strap.  The  whole  surface 
is  in  coarse  twilled  weaving  in  two-strand  twine  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  row  between  the  bottom  and  the  body,  which  is 
in  three-strand.  The  constriction  of  the  body  is  said  to  be 
an  imitation  of  a  custom  of  tying  rag  around  the  young  gourd 
so  as  to  stop  its  growth,  which  results  in  a  modification  use- 
ful for  holding  the  carrying  strap.  Its  height  is  9  inches. 
Cat.  No.  68,541,  U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  6  is  a  water-tight  basket  jar,  from  the  Zufii  Indians, 
symmetrical  in  outline.  It  is  in  the  twilled  type  of  twined 
weaving,  with  wooden  lugs  on  the  side  and  no  flattening  of 
surface  between  them.  Its  height  is  7^  inches.  Cat.  No. 
68,502,  U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  7  is  a  gathering  basket  from  the  Zufii  Indians.  The 
weaving  on  the  bottom  and  the  body  is  in  the  twilled  type  of 
twined  work;  the  neck,  on  the  contrary,  has  about  an  inch 
of  plain  twined  weaving,  and  is  finished  off  with  four  rows  of 
three-strand  twine.  The  border  is  in  coiled  sewing  of  yucca. 
This  specimen,  like  the  preceding,  is  made  from  the  stems  of 
Chrysothamnus.  Its  height  is  7^  inches.  Cat.  No.  68,491, 
U.S.N.M. 

Fig.  8  is  a  gathering  basket  from  the  Zufii  Indians.  The 
bottom  is  in  twilled  twined  work ;  the  body  is  in  plain  twined 
work  relieved  at  varying  distances  with  single  rows  of  three- 
ply  weaving;  border  finished  off  with  coiled  work  in  yucca. 
Its  height  is  6  inches. 

The  Zufii  pueblos  in  western  New  Mexico  lie  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  desert  region.  On  the  east  are  the  Rio  Grande 
pueblos,  on  the  northwest  the  Hopi,  and  far  to  the  south  the 
Gila  River.  Besides  the  settled  communities  long  inhabiting 
this  region,  the  Navaho  and  Apache  are  close  at  hand  on  every 
side,  and  the  Utes  not  far  away.  There  is  no  surprise,  there- 


450  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

fore,  in  finding  on  the  same  plate  illustrations  of  wickerwork, 
twined  work  in  its  many  varieties  of  plain  twilled  and  three- 
strand  work,  and  all  of  these  at  times  on  the  same  piece  of 
basketry. 

Plate  214  shows  a  rare  lot  of  old  coiled  baskets,  chiefly 
from  Zufii  and  Sia,  in  New  Mexico,  collected  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  by  James  Stevenson,  of  the  Bureau 
of  American  Ethnology.  They  appear  to  be  of  the  three-rod 
variety,  though  splints  may  take  the  place  of  rods  in  some  of 
them.  They  are  catalogued  as  follows,  in  the  order  named : 

Top  row — 

1.  No.  68,471,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    length,  9^  inches. 

2.  No.  68,550,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    height,  4^  inches. 

3.  No.  68,474,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    height,  7     inches. 

4.  No.  68,472,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    height,  4$  inches. 

5.  No.  42,140,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    height,  4^  inches. 
Bottom  row — 

1.  No.  68,489,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;    height,  4!  inches. 

2.  No.  166,800,  Apache,  James  Mooney;  height,  8f  inches. 

3.  No.    134,215,   Sia,   James   Stevenson;      diameter,    n£ 
inches. 

4.  No.  134,214,  Sia,  James  Stevenson;    height,  12  inches. 

5.  No.  42,168,  Zuni,  James  Stevenson;   height,  4  inches. 

A  jar-shaped  coiled  basket  attributed  by  the  collector  to 
the  Zuni  Indians  is  shown  in  fig.  189.  It  is  a  very  beautiful 
and  smooth  piece  of  coiled  ware,  to  which  justice  is  not 
done  by  the  drawing.  In  regularity  of  stitch,  symmetrical 
shape,  and  ornamentation  it  is  almost  without  fault.  It 
belongs  to  the  class  of  technic  termed  in  this  treatise  rod  and 
welt.  The  foundation  consists  of  a  single  rod,  over  which  is 
laid  a  thin  splint,  perhaps  of  the  same  material.  The  stitch 
passes  over  rod  and  welt  in  the  row  that  is  in  progress  of  manu- 
facture, and  not  only  locks  with  the  stitch  underneath,  but  in 
each  case  takes  up  the  welt.  This  forms  an  excellent  packing. 
The  stitches  are  crowded  so  closely  together  that  in  the  original 


Plate  215.     See  page  453 

HOPI  WOMEN  MAKING  WICKER  AND  COILED  BASKET  TRAYS 

Photographed  by  W.  H.  Simpson 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


451 


those  of  the  different  rows  lie  practically  one  over  the  other, 
with  a  slight  inclination  from  the  perpendicular.  On  the  bot- 
tom, not  shown  here,  it  has  a  circle  in  black  from  which  radiate 
six  spiral  rays.  On  the  body,  the  ornamentation  is  as  shown 


FIG.  189. 

COILED  BASKET  JAR. 
Zuni   Indians,  New  Mexico. 
Cat.  No.  68.546,  U.S.N.M.    Collected  by  J.  W.  Powell 

in  the  figure.  It  is  made  from  the  pod  of  Martynia  louisiana. 
On  the  shoulder,  two  lugs  of  leather  are  sewed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  carrying  the  jar,  being  intended,  doubtless,  for  the 
transportation  of  food  or  water.  It  is  customary  to  attribute 
such  ware  to  the  Apache  Indians,  although  in  the  National 


452  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Museum  there  are  quite  a  number  of  very  old  coiled  jars  of  this 
type  and  fine  workmanship  purporting  to  come  from  the  Zufii 
Indians.  This  specimen  was  gotten  by  Major  Powell,  one  of 
the  most  careful  collectors,  so  that  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the 
location.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  Zufii,  since  they 
are  potters,  may  have  acquired  this  coiled  specimen  in  traffic. 

The  detail  of  this  texture,  both  in  its  sewing  and  ornamenta- 
tion, is  illustrated  in  fig.  48,  also  by  Gushing.* 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  68,546  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  procured  in  New  Mexico  by  James 
Stevenson.  Its  width  is  9  inches  and  depth  10  inches. 

The  Hopi  pueblo  settlement,  called  also  Moki,  in  the  ancient 
province  of  Tusayan,  is  made  up  of  the  following-named  vil- 
lages, in  order  from  east  to  west:  Walpi,  Ha'no  or  Te'wa, 
Sichomovi,  Shipaulovi,  Mushongunuvi,  Shumopavi,  and  Oraibi. 
Here  in  these  seven  old  towns  are  made  all  kinds  of  basket- 
work.  From  Dr.  Walter  Hough  the  following  information  is 
received :  The  thick  North-African-like  coiled  plaques  are  from 
Mushongunuvi  Shipaulovi,  and  ShumSpavi,  all  on  the  middle 
mesa,  and  nowhere  else  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  The 
material  for  the  foundation  is  stems  of  Takashu  (Hilaria 
jamesii),  gathered  in  October.  The  sewing  is  done  with  nar- 
row strips  from  the  leaves  of  Mohu  (Yucca  glauca)  in  the 
natural  colour  of  the  outside  or  the  interior,  or  nowadays  dyed 
in  aniline  colours.  Formerly  vegetal  dyes  were  employed,  red 
brown  Ohaushi  (Thelesperma  gracile) ;  dark  blue  from  seeds  of 
Akaushi  (Helianthus  petiolaris) ;  yellow  from  Asapzrani  (Car- 
thamus  tinctorius) ;  green  or  blue,  rarely  seen  on  old  baskets ; 
but  from  Mrs.  Hough  comes  the  delightful  information  that 
the  Hopi  make  a  native  blue  dye  from  the  beans  which  they 
raise  for  food.  The  following  are  their  terms  for  basketry : 

Apa,  blanket  mat.     (Anciently  made  in  checker  weaving.) 

Chu  ku  po  eta,  also  Chu  ku  bot  se  buh,  Havasupai. 

Shio  en  ya  puh,  Oraibi  wicker  tray. 

*  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1886,  p.  486. 


he  Zuni 
•  of 

most  careful  cu  *  to  the 

lion.  It  is  posfi-.blf.,  };..  rdi,  «nce  they 

arc  potters,  may  h  traffic. 

The  detail  of  this  texture,  b  amenta- 
tion,  is  illustrated  in  fig.  48 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  N  1  States 

National  Museum,  was  pr  James 

Stevenson.  Its  width  is  9  IT  ies. 

The  Hopi  pueblo  sett  Icr.  •  ancient 
province  of  Txisayan,  is  tied  vil- 
la^ .*,  in  or  1'T  fr<«m  f*st  I  or  Te'wa, 
Sieh6m6vi,  Shipaul«->vi«  Hie  i  Oraibi. 
H-  ••  :n  •!>••:.  -•  .-::•••  -  of  basket- 
work  Plate  216.  See  page  454  iatlOn  is 

HOPI  SACRED  COILED  PLAQUES  HQ  from 

In  which  the  symbols  are  reduced  to  the  lowest  terms 

Collected  by  James  Mooney  {-""llu TO 

my  -vr..i«  ffw  iV  •  Hilaria 

]a*tf<ii).  &i\ }<- >«'.!  rr  -Ith  nar- 

nm-  atnpt  *n>ra  tiie  fettve*  t-  .  :  in  the 

n&lural «. 'i"u-  •'  •  -^  -  - /s  dyed 

in  aniline  ci.»»«--urs.  "ed,  red 

bn>\Mi  C>h;\ur>'v  r,  of 

Akaushi  (Htiunth*;  <v  (Cor- 

skets ; 

but  from  Mrs.  hat 

the  Hopi  make  an  «  •'  ich  they 

raise  for  food.  The  f"i  i't-try : 

Apa,  blanket  mat.     (  m      ing.) 

Chu  ku  po  eta,  also  (*t 

Shio  en  ya  puh,  Oraibi  •  s. 

*  Fourth  Annual  Rfj^T '  -:rf  > 


Plate  217.    See  page  456 

TEWAN  PUEBLO  WOMAN,  ON  THE    Rio  GRANDE,  WINNOWING  SEEDS 

Photographed  by  A.  C.  Vroman 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  453 

Du  tsi  ye,  or  Du  tsai  ya,  sifting  basket. 

Ho  a  puh,  carrying  basket  (wicker  over  frame  of  bent  sticks 
crossed). 

Kom  che,  awl  of  bone. 

Hush  tush  shum  pi,  or  Ko  tuc,  basket  for  parched  corn. 

Kwaku  iitshpi  (hay  cover),  twined  mat  for  kiva  hatch. 

Pek  ech  be,  piki  tray  (food  tray). 

Po  eta,  basket  plaque  (coiled). 

Se  boch  be  (Oraibi  basket). 

Tumni,  flat  basket  in  Soyalana  rites. 

Wiko  zhro,  pitched  bottle. 

Plate  215  represents  Hopi  women  making  coiled  and  wicker 
baskets.  Photographed  by  W.  H.  Simpson.  Figured  and 
coloured  examples  of  their  ware  are  shown  in  Plates  16,  27,  30, 
47,  85,  93,  and  216. 

Wicker  baskets  are  made  at  the  Hopi  pueblo,  Oraibi.  The 
radiating  framework  is  of  slender  shoots  of  siibi,  Rhus  trilobata. 
The  interwoven  element  is  of  branches  of  hanoshivapi,  Chrys- 
othamnus  graveolens,  also  called  Bigelovia,  carefully  smoothed 
and  dyed,  as  in  the  coiled  baskets,  red  brown,  red,  yellow,  dark 
blue,  purple,  green,  blue,  and  white,  the  latter  with  kaolin. 

The  white  of  the  background  is  applied  after  the  basket  is 
finished.  The  edge  of  the  basket  is  finished  with  a  winding 
of  yucca  over  the  several  rods  of  rhus  bent  down  after 
the  basket  has  reached  the  size  required.  This  edge  is 
often  painted  with  red  ocher  (Hough).  The  framework 
consists  of  two  cross  sets  of  twigs,  four  or  more  in  a  bar 
of  the  cross.  These  are  firmly  held  together  at  their  inter- 
section by  weaving.  They  are  then  spread  out  radially,  the 
space  being  from  time  to  time  supplemented  by  additional 
stems.  The  worker  provides  herself  with  bunches  of  white, 
yellow,  orange,  purple,  black,  blue,  and  green  twigs  only  a  few 
inches  in  length.  These  she  proceeds  to  weave  into  patterns 
of  the  greatest  beauty,  even  imitating  cloud  effects  seen  on 
Japanese  screens,  using  long  or  short  twigs  as  the  occasion 


454  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

demands,  hiding  the  ends  between  the  ribs  and  the  filling  of  the 
preceding  coils.  (See  Plate  216.) 

The  variety  of  ornament  created  with  these  poor  appliances 
is  marvellous.  In  no  other  tribe  of  Indians  and  in  no  other  type 
of  basketry  are  more  striking  effects  realised.  It  seems  almost 
as  if  the  women  had  set  themselves  the  problem  of  pro- 
ducing with  the  least  pliable  materials  the  most  versatile  of 
effects,  in  which  are  embodied  the  symbols  of  an  intricate  ritual, 
in  all  grades  of  symbolism  from  the  pictograph  to  the  mere 
conventional  mathematical  form.  Both,  however,  represent 
the  same  ideas.  It  will  be  easily  seen  that  the  figures  on  the 
back  and  front  do  not  exactly  conform,  the  corresponding 
square  on  the  back  being  always  one  space  to  the  right  or  left 
of  the  same  in  front. 

Attention  is  called  at  this  point  to  the  ornamental  begin- 
ning of  the  wicker  plaque,  or  sacred  meal  baskets.  In  the 
chapter  on  structure,  attention  is  directed  to  the  methods  of 
holding  the  central  warp  stems  together  before  bending  them 
apart  radially.  Two  methods  are  resorted  to.  On  one,  half  a 
dozen  or  more  stems  are  laid  side  by  side  and  wrapped  together 
by  a  process  shown  in  fig.  38,  after  Miss  White.  The  same 
number  of  stems  are  similarly  joined  and  laid  under  this  at 
right  angles,  the  whole  twelve  being  bound  together  by  one  or 
two  rows  of  wicker  weaving.  From  this  central  point,  the 
twelve  or  more  wrapped  stems  are  bent  apart  at  equal  dis- 
tances and  the  regular  wicker  weaving  proceeds.  At  a  certain 
distance  outward,  new  warp  stems  are  added  between  each 
pair  of  those  already  in  use,  and  from  this  circle  the  weaving 
proceeds  to  the  margin. 

With  the  same  number  of  warp  stems,  quite  a  different 
process  is  sometimes  employed,  by  which  the  two  sets  of  the 
upper  and  lower  are  held  together  in  pairs  by  wicker  weaving, 
and  at  an  inch  from  the  center  the  whole  series  are  bound 
together  as  before  and  widening  and  weaving  proceed  in  the 
same  manner. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


455 


Fig.  190  is  a  coarse  wicker  tray  of  the  Hopi  Indians  of  north- 
eastern Arizona,  and  is  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  illus- 
trating the  method  in  which  the  much  finer  work  on  the  sacred 
meal  trays  is  done.  Here  may  be  seen  the  plan  of  starting 
out  with  a  few  stems  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles  for 
warp ;  the  method  of  hiding  the  large  end  of  the  weft  stems  to 
become  a  portion  of  the  warp,  and  the  method  of  adding  new 


FIG.  IQO. 

COARSE  WICKERWORK. 
Hopi  Indians,  Arizona. 

warp  stems  as  they  are  needed.  Especial  attention  is  called 
to  the  way  in  which  several  stems  for  weft  are  introduced  at 
the  same  time  and  worked  along  in  sets  or  series.  The  com- 
mon method  of  working  out  the  twill  would  be  to  introduce  a 
weft  stem,  carry  it  as  far  as  it  would  go,  and  then  insert  a  new 
one;  but  in  this  case  the  series  of  half  a  dozen  stems  are  all 
worked  at  the  same  time.  Compare  description  of  a  Mexican 
wicker  basket,  on  page  484. 

The  modern  twilled  basketry  is  as  rough  as  it  can  be.     The 


456  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

same  is  true  of  the  flat  mats  used  about  the  dwellings ;  in  fact, 
the  mat  and  the  basket  are  identical  in  weaving.  The  basket 
is  formed  by  bending  the  mat  over  the  edge  of  a  hoop  and 
sewing  down  with  a  row  of  twined  weaving. 

Plate  217,  in  the  graceful  pose  of  the  actor,  reminds  one  of 
the  vestal  Tuccia.  In  this  picture  she  is  a  pueblo  woman  of 
the  Tewan  family,  living  on  the  Rio  Grande  and  cousin  to  the 
people  of  the  most  eastern  Hopi  pueblo.  She  is  a  survival  of 
the  gleaners  and  winnowers  of  primeval  times.  Interest  here 
centers  in  her  baskets,  one  of  which  is  a  receptacle,  the  other  a 
primitive  fanning  mill.  Photographed  by  A.  C.  Vroman. 

The  twined  ware  of  the  Hopi  are  a  few  baskets  and  other 
domestic  utensils,  made  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Ute  hats, 
but  there  is  enough  dissimilarity  of  form  to  give  the  Hopi  the 
credit  of  inventing  this  peculiar  style.  (See  Plate  218,  figs. 
4  and  7.) 

Plate  218  shows  a  collection  from  Oraibi,  the  westernmost 
of  the  Hopi  pueblos  in  northeastern  Arizona,  gathered  by  Col- 
onel James  Stevenson  and  Cosmos  Mindeleff.  The  three  types 
of  work  always  in  mind  when  Oraibi  and  the  pueblos  of  the 
adjoining  mesa  are  mentioned,  to  wit,  twilled,  thick  coils,  and 
wicker,  are  utterly  wanting  in  these  examples.  The  cosmo- 
politan character  of  the  Hopi  is  attested  by  the  varieties  of 
technic  in  the  plate.  The  baskets  on  the  upper  row  are  as 
follows,  from  left  to  right: 

1.  Water-tight  coiled  jar,  with  foundation  of  rods,  sewing 
material  of  willow  splints,  the  stitches  interlocking,  but  not 
taking  in  any  of  the  foundation  below.     Catalogue  No.  42,109 
in  the  United  States  National  Museum.     Height,  i\  inches. 
The  lugs  on  the  side  are  of  horsehair. 

2.  An  old  flat  coiled  dish,  No.  41,227,  said  to  have  come 
from  Zufii,  in  western  New  Mexico ;  7^  inches  in  diameter. 

3.  A  delightful   old  gathering  basket,   No.    42,126,   from 
Oraibi.     It  is  of  the  three-rod  coiled  variety,  and  might  be 
taken  for  the  original  elegant  Porno  Bamtsuwu.     Each  stitch 


Plate  219.     See  page  459 

FRAGMENT  OF  ANCIENT  WICKER  BASKET  FROM  CHEVLON  PASS, 
ARIZONA.     AFTER  J.  WALTER  FEWKES 


Plate  220.      See  page  459 

FRAGMENTS  OF  TWILLED  AND  COILED  BASKETRY,  CHEVLON  PASS, 
ARIZONA.     AFTER  J.  WALTER  FEWKES 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  457 

passes  over  three  rods  of  the  current  foundation  and  under  the 
upper  rod  of  the  coil  underneath,  illustrated  in  fig.  G  on  page 
89.  Its  height  is  7^  inches. 

4.  A  gathering  basket  in  twilled  twined  technic.  On  the 
bottom  is  a  projection  whose  function  is  not  known.  Notice 
on  the  shoulder  three  rows  of  twined  work  over  two  warps. 
The  difference  between  this  and  twilled  work  is  that  the  weft 
elements  embrace  the  same  pairs  of  warps  and  are  superposed. 
The  border  is  finished  off  with  a  neat  herring-bone  stitch. 
Catalogue  No.  83,977,  United  States  National  Museum.  Its 
height  is  6  inches. 

The  old  pieces  on  the  lower  row  are  equally  interesting. 

1.  A   globose   coiled   jar   in   three-rod   foundation.     The 
workmanship  is  coarse,  but  the  form  is  suggestive  of  old  pot- 
tery.    This  specimen  is  No.  84,596,  United  States  National 
Museum,  and  is  7  inches  in  height. 

2.  A  water  jar  in  three-rod  coil,  modern,  with  lugs  of  horse- 
hair on  the  side  for  carrying.     The  border  is  fastened  off  with  a 
kind  of  sewing  here  called  false  braid.      The  material  for 
making  the  vessel  water-tight  is  pine  resin.     Catalogue  No. 
42,107,  United  States  National  Museum.     Its  height  is   10 
inches. 

3.  This  interesting  piece  of  water-tight  twilled  twined  work 
is  strengthened  by  an  interior  framework  similar  to  that  seen 
often  in  the  large  Zuni  packing  baskets  for  donkeys,  and  sug- 
gests the  possibility  of  transporting  water  in  the  same  fashion. 
The  weaving  is  rude,  but  all  the  better  for  holding  pitch.     The 
border,  however,  is  neatly  done  in  false  braid.     Catalogue  No. 
68,506,   United  States  National  Museum.     Its  height  is   15 
inches. 

4.  The  water  jar  constricted  in  the  middle  might  with 
propriety  be  called  a  canteen.     Frequently  the  savages  in  this 
arid  region  tie  a  bandage  around  a  young  gourd,  which  after- 
wards takes  the  shape  here  shown.     The  foundation  of  the  coil 
is  more  like  that  of  Apache,  the  stitches  interlocking.     Indeed, 


458  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

the  piece  is  labelled  "  old  Apache  "  by  the  collector.  It  is  num- 
bered 40,109  and  is  8£  inches  high. 

5.  A  water  jar  or  pitcher  in  three-rod  coil.  It  should  be 
compared  with  No.  i  in  the  same  row,  secured  in  Oraibi  by  the 
same  collector.  It  is  Catalogue  No.  84,596,  United  States 
National  Museum.  Its  height  is  8£  inches. 

Fig.  191  is  an  ancient  miniature  gaming  wheel,  used  fre- 
quently in  the  ceremonials  of  the  modern  Pueblo  Indians. 


FIG.  191. 

ANCIENT  BASKETRY  GAMING  WHEEL. 
Pueblo  Indians,  New  Mexico. 
Collected  by  James  Stevenson. 

Then,  as  now,  the  hoop  of  wood  was  made  and  a  series  of  half- 
hitches  passed  around  the  inner  side,  done  in  yucca  fiber. 
This  process  was  repeated  upon  the  loops  thus  constituted 
until  the  center  of  the  wheel  was  reached.  It  is  in  effect  a  kind 
of  coiled  work  in  which  the  foundation  is  absent.  Collected  by 
James  Stevenson. 

Dr.  J.  Walter  Fewkes  was  so  fortunate  as  to  recover  from 
the  Chevlon  ruin,  fifteen  miles  from  Winslow,  and  in  sight  of 


• 


Plate  221.      See  page  460 

ANCIENT  WICKER  AND  COILED  BASKETRY  FROM  RUINS  IN  ARIZONA 
AFTER  WALTER  HOUGH 


Plate  222.      See  page  460 

ANCIENT  COILED  WARE  FROM  RUINS  IN  ARIZONA 
AFTER  WALTER  HOUGH 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  459 

the  station  Hardy  on  the  Santa  F6  Railroad,  fragments  of 
ancient  basketry  shown  in  the  accompanying  plates.  The 
custom  of  burying  baskets  with  the  dead  is  still  preserved  in  the 
Tusayan  towns,  and  from  the  specimens  here  figured  it  has 
been  inherited  from  ancient  times.  Baskets,  says  Fewkes,  are 
not  now  made  at  the  east  mesa,  and  the  craft  is  confined  to  the 
middle  mesa  and  Oraibi. 

The  wicker  baskets  from  several  graves  at  Chevlon  were 
identical  with  those  made  to-day  in  the  pueblo  of  Oraibi. 
Some  of  these  specimens  were  painted  on  the  surface  a  green 
colour  with  malachite,  or  blue  with  azurite.  In  other  exam- 
ples, the  small  stems  had  been  stained  before  they  were  woven. 
Plate  219  represents  a  segment  from  a  wicker  basket  made 
from  the  stems  of  Chrysothamnus  graveolens.  The  warp  con- 
sists of  small  bundles  of  stems ;  the  weft,  of  the  same  material 
barked  and  smoothed  down,  in  some  places  dyed.  The  inter- 
esting feature  of  the  specimen  is  the  increasing  of  the  number 
of  warp  elements  as  the  basket  enlarges.  At  first  in  the  draw- 
ing there  are  five  bundles  of  stems ;  about  two  inches  lower  the 
number  is  increased  to  seven;  and  near  the  bottom,  by  the 
introduction  of  new  stems,  ten  warp  elements  are  provided  for. 
As  in  the  modern  basketry,  in  this  ancient  example  the  weft 
is  soaked  and  woven  in  that  condition  and  pressed  home  so 
effectually  that  the  warp  is  invisible. 

In  Plate  220,  fig.  i,  is  shown  a  specimen  of  ancient  matting 
in  twilled  weaving.  The  work  is  done  in  split  yucca  leaves, 
just  as  to-day,  and  in  certain  places  the  figure  shows  where  the 
leaf  was  stripped  from  the  stalk.  Examining  the  thousands 
of  mats  and  soft  baskets  from  the  same  pueblo  reveals  the 
identical  method  of  doing  the  twilled  work,  but  in  a  great  many 
of  the  modern  examples  regular  diaper  patterns  are  introduced. 
In  the  same  plate  (fig.  3)  is  an  ancient  example  of  coiled  bas- 
ketry having  foundation  of  three  stems  or  rods.  By  referring 
to  the  California  basketry  it  will  be  seen  that  this  foundation 
is  the  same.  This  makes  a  very  smooth  surface,  easily  dis- 


460  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

tinguishable  from  the  rugose  condition  of  Apache  basket  built 
on  a  single  rod.* 

These  specimens  are  Catalogue  Nos.  157,912,  157,915, 
157,918  in  the  United  States  National  Museum,  and  were 
procured  at  Chevlon,  Arizona,  by  Dr.  J.  Walter  Fewkes. 

Plates  221,  222  illustrate  the  forms  and  uses  of  basketry  in 
the  pueblos  of  northeastern  Arizona  before  the  coming  of  the 
whites.  The  explorations  of  Dr.  J.  Walter  Fewkes  in  Sikyatki 
and  Awatobi,  and  the  Museum-Gates  expedition  in  1901  to 
examine  two  ruins  on  the  Jettyto  Wash,  a  few  miles  from 
Keams  Canyon,  have  brought  to  light  wicker,  twilled,  and 
coiled  basketry.  The  wickerwork  is  precisely  identical  with 
the  little  wicker  trays  or  plaques  made  in  the  pueblo  of  Oraibi 
and  used  in  religious  ceremonies  there.  The  twilled  work  is  the 
matting  of  to-day,  and  the  coiled  resembles  that  of  the  Utes  or 
Pimas  rather  than  that  of  the  Apache,  having  a  foundation 
not  of  rods,  but  of  fine  material.  The  uses  of  basketry  must 
have  been  in  all  respects  as  among  the  Hopis  of  our  day,  but 
Plate  223  shows  the  connection  of  such  material  with  the  care 
of  the  dead  (Catalogue  No.  213,074).  The  plate  illustrates  the 
fact  that  coarse  wicker  matting  was  placed  in  the  bottom  of 
the  grave;  on  this  was  laid  a  matting  of  yucca  fiber,  and  on 
this  was  deposited  the  body.  In  the  dressing  of  the  hair, 
then,  as  now,  a  plaited  cord  of  human  hair  was  employed.  A 
description  of  its  discovery  appears  in  Dr.  Hough's  paper, 
Archeological  Field  Work  in  Northeastern  Arizona. 

Judging  from  the  artifacts  secured  by  the  Museum-Gates 
expedition,  these  pueblos  belong  to  the  type  of  Awatobi  and 
Sikyatki,  and,  as  far  as  appearances  go,  may  have  been  con- 
temporaneous. Dr.  Fewkes  regards  Sikyatki  as  one  of  the 
most  ancient  pueblos  of  the  Hopi  group.  It  is  well  known  that 
Awatobi  was  inhabited  up  to  the  year  1700,  but  there  is  no 
historical  reference  to  the  pueblos  from  which  these  specimens 
were  derived,  and  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  Iron  Age  in  them. 

*  Smithsonian  Report,  1896,  pis.  XXXII  and  XXXIII,  after  Fewkes. 


Plate  223.     See  page  460 

ANCIENT  COILED  AND  BRAIDED  WARE,  IN  MORTUARY 
USES,  ARIZONA.     AFTER  WALTER  HOUGH 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  461 

It  seems  probable,  however,  that  they  date  before  the  year 
1 700,  but  just  how  much  anterior  it  is  not  possible  at  present 
to  say.* 

ATHAPASCAN  BASKETRY 

A  summary  of  Athapascan  basketry  in  its  ethnic  areas 
would  indicate  the  following : 

The  northern  Athapascans  in  the  interior  of  Alaska  and  in 
the  Mackenzie  drainage  make  coiled  basketry  in  a  variety  of 
types,  the  material  being  willow  and  root  of  the  conifers. 
The  Pacific  coast  group,  living  formerly  in  Washington,  Oregon, 
and  northwestern  California,  near  the  sea,  of  which  the  Hupas 
are  the  best  known,  excel  in  twined  work  with  decoration  in 
overlaying,  but  these  tribes  have  not  the  versatility  of  the 
Porno,  farther  south.  All  the  weaving  is  of  one  variety,  well 
known  in  the  region. 

The  southern  Athapascans,  under  many  names,  practice 
both  coiled  and  twined  basketry.  They  base  their  coiled  work 
on  hard  stems,  and  sew  them  with  splints  of  cottonwood, 
mulberry,  sumac,  and  willow,  or  strips  of  yucca.  They  also 
used  agave  fiber. 

The  mescal  plant  (Agave  americana),  says  Bourke,  is  to  the 
Apache  what  the  palm  is  to  the  East.  It  is  baked  in  ovens 
for  victuals,  and  its  juice  is  fermented  to  make  a  drink.  For 
the  basketmaker  the  thorns  are  good  needles,  the  fibers  ex- 
cellent thread  material,  and  the  flower  stalk  forms  the  frame 
of  the  carrying  outfit. 

The  Apaches  or  southern  Athapascan  basketmakers  were 
formerly  spread  over  eastern  Arizona,  western  New  Mexico, 
and  in  Texas  along  the  Rio  Grande,  as  will  be  seen  in  Powell's 
linguistic  map.f  They  were  gathered  on  reservations  by 

*  Archeological  Field  Work  in  Northeastern  Arizona.  The  Museum- 
Gates  expedition  of  1901.  Walter  Hough,  Report  of  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  1901,  pp.  279-358. 

t  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1891,  pocket. 


462  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

General  Nelson  A.  Miles.  Scattered  bands  are  to  be  found 
here  and  there.  Mr.  James  mentions  one  near  Short  Horn 
Mountains  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Palomas  and  Agua 
Caliente,  comprising  about  thirty  families  of  basketmakers. 
The  collector  or  student  must  not  be  surprised,  therefore,  if 
in  the  hands  of  Apaches  is  seen  work  of  other  tribes.  Indeed, 
he  will  frequently  see  the  women  borrowing  materials,  struc- 
tures, forms,  and  even  designs  from  outside.  A  large  and 
varied  collection  of  Apache  ware  is  exhibited  in  the  Free 
Museum,  of  Phoenix,  Arizona,  collected  by  Messrs.  Benham. 

On  the  authority  of  Mrs.  J.  S.  Newman  there  are  five 
tribes  on  the  Apache  Reservation,  and  a  few  scattered  members 
of  other  tribes,  but  five  only  are  basketmakers.  Of  these, 
the  Tonto  should  rank  first,  making  chiefly  ollas,  which 
require  more  skill  than  plaques  or  bowl  shapes,  and  their  work 
is  invariably  even  and  good.  Their  specimens  are  nearly 
always  marked  with  the  arrow-point,  the  pattern  running 
vertically  from  the  center.  Their  proficiency  is  accounted 
for  in  the  fact  that  the  land  allowed  them  on  the  Gila  River  is 
the  least  productive  of  any  on  the  reservation,  hence  their 
dependence  on  basket-making  for  a  living. 

The  center  or  beginning  of  either  Apache  coiled  bowl  or 
olla  is  always  wrapped  with  black  (devil  claw),  and  the  rim 
finished  with  the  same  stitch  as  that  used  throughout  the 
body  of  the  work,  both  or  either  colours  being  used. 

Plate  224  shows  a  number  of  Apache  coiled  bowls  belonging 
to  the  collection  of  J.  W.  Benham.  The  foundation  is  in  whole 
stem  and  the  sewing  done  with  splints  of  white  wood  and 
martynia.  A  comparison  of  these  ten  pieces  reveals  tolerably 
well  the  genius  of  Apache  decorations.  There  are  discrete 
figures  of  men  and  beasts;  also  both  radial  and  concentric 
designs;  and  in  the  crenelated  (fig.  10)  and  fretted  motives 
(figs.  5  and  9)  suggestions  arise  which  point  to  the  Tulare 
area.  The  Apache,  naturally  a  wanderer,  has  picked  up  here 
a  little  and  there  a  little  of  design. 


Plate  224.      See  page  462     COILED    BASKETRY    OF    THE    APACHE, 

SHOWING  BORROWED  DESIGNS, 
ARIZONA 

Collection  of  J.  W.  Benham 


5      6      7 
8910 


nai23b  niaborn  I,  ?.i  Iwod  i3wol  3rft  j 
sno  n;  Juo  baJiow 


aril  Elnaaaiqai  Iwod  isfjqu  sill  )o  ngizab  arfT 
ni  )wl  .noilqaanoa  Jnallaaxs  lo 


Plate  225.     See  page  463 


The  design  of  the  upper  bowl  represents  the  sunflower ;  the  lower  bowl  is  a  modern  design 
of  excellent  conception,  but  inaccurately  worked  out  in  one  place 

Collected  by  Walter  Hough 


Plate   226.     See   page   463 

COILED  Bowi.s  OF  THE  WHITE  MOUNTAIN  APACHE,  ARIZONA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  463 

The  White  Mountain  Apaches  are  clustered  around  Camp 
Apache,  the  agency,  and  on  two  of  the  large  creeks  running 
south  from  the  Mogollon  mesa.  The  art  of  basket-making  is 
not  actively  practised  at  present,  the  younger  members  of  the 
tribe  finding  it  difficult  to  learn,  and  saying  that  it  injures  their 
hands.  Some  of  the  old  women,  however,  retain  the  ancient 
skill,  and  even  superior  work  may  be  secured  from  the  reserva- 
tion. It  may  be  said  that  the  carrying  baskets  and  the 
pitched  water  bottles  are  as  frequently  made  as  ever  and  are 
in  constant  use,  whereas  the  finer  bowls,  which  were  formerly 
common,  as  among  the  Pueblo  tribes,  for  storing  meal,  etc., 
are  growing  rarer  every  year  and  command  high  prices. 

The  baskets  shown  in  Plate  225,  Catalogue  Nos.  213,262 
and  213,268,  United  States  National  Museum,  were  secured  at 
the  agency  in  the  summer  of  1901. 

Fig.  i  is  a  small,  well-woven  bowl,  the  design  representing 
the  sunflower. 

The  second  figure  is  a  modern  basket  with  geometrical 
pattern,  which  in  certain  portions  is  quite  inaccurately  worked 
out.  On  the  whole,  the  design  is  excellent. 

Plate  226  represents  coiled  basket  bowls  of  the  White 
Mountain  Apache.  The  foundation  of  the  upper  figure  is  of 
willow,  the  sewing  in  splints  of  white  wood  and  martynia  in 
alternate  rows,  which  are  divided  into  four  sections  by  V- 
shaped  ornaments,  effected  by  changing  the  direction  of  the 
lines  in  black. 

The  lower  figure  is  the  same  material,  foundation  of  rods, 
sewing  in  white  and  black,  coarsely  done,  stitches  scarcely 
touching.  The  whole  surface  is  covered  with  rhomboidal 
figures,  produced  by  crossing  of  four  sets  of  lines  in  pairs, 
passing  in  cycloidal  curves  from  the  bottom  to  the  margin. 
Catalogue  Nos.  213,264  and  213,265. 

The  specimens  were  collected  by  Doctor  Walter  Hough,  on 
White  Mountain  Apache  Reservation,  100  miles  south  of 
Holbrook,  Arizona. 


464 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


The  symbol  is  that  of  the  martynia  hooks,  the  sharp  points 
having  been  allowed  to  project  from  the  inner  surface  in 
certain  areas. 

The  shoots  for  basket  material  are  gathered  in  the  spring, 
tied  in  bundles,  and  put  away  in  the  houses  for  future  use, 
sometimes  with  the  bark  on,  at  others  without.  When  the 

basketmakeris 
ready,  the  osiers  are 
soaked  thoroughly 
in  water;  the  sterns 
are  employed  whole 
for  the  foundation 
of  the  coil,  and  the 
sewing  is  done  only 
with  the  outer  layer, 
the  inner  portions 
being  peeled  off  and 
the  splints  scraped. 
One  end  is  held  in 
the  mouth,  the  other 
in  the  left  hand, 
while  the  steel  knife, 
formerly  the  stone 
knife,  is  used  in  the 
right  hand. 

The  ornamentation  on  all  this  basketry  is  in  Martynia 
louisiana,  or  devil  horns  (Tagate),  the  design  itself  often  being 
the  figure  of  the  plant.  The  awl  used  in  the  sewing  is  called 
by  the  White  Mountain  Indian,  tsatl;  the  coiled  bowl,  tsa; 
the  spindle-shaped  water  jar,  tose;  the  carrying  basket  of 
twined  work,  ta  tsa ;  the  gathering  scoop,  pen  al  t6 ;  and  the 
shoots  of  wood,  tsin. 

Fig.  192  shows  the  ornamentation  on  a  coiled  basket  bowl 
of  the  Coyotero,  on  the  San  Carlos  Agency,  in  southern  Ari- 
zona. The  parts  are  in  three ;  the  smaller  design  is  made  up 


FIG.   ipa. 

COILED  BOWL. 

Coyotero  Indians,  Arizona. 

Collected  by  H.  W.  Read. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


465 


of  a  combination  of  little  squares  and  triangles,  the  larger 
design  being  more  complicated  in  its  elements,  with  its  three 
vase-shaped  parts,  which  terminate  in  the  dark  circle  of  the 
center.  The  meaning  of  this  design  is  unknown. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  4,428  in  the  United  States 


FIG.  193. 

BASKET  JAR. 

Apache   Indians. 

Collected  by  J.  B.  White. 

National  Museum,  was  collected  on  the  Gila  River,  Arizona, 
by  H.  W.  Read. 

Fig.  193  is  an  old  bottle-shaped  coiled  basket,  made,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Hough,  long  ago  by  the  Mescalero  Apache,  before 
they  adopted  the  present  wide  variety.  The  foundation  of 
the  coil  consists  of  a  rigid  stem  overlaid  with  soft  fiber.  The 
stitching  passes  over  the  foundation  of  the  coil,  under  the 
packing  of  the  coil  underneath.  The  sewing  is  done  with 


466 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


splints  of  willow  or  cottonwood.  The  ornamentation  con- 
sists of  six  rows  of  coiling  in  brown  material  on  the  neck,  a 
row  of  black  material  on  the  shoulder,  with  two  rows  of  chev- 
rons on  the  body.  The  latest  Apache  has  only  black  and  white 
in  decoration ;  red  and  brown  are  old  and  rare. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  21,494  in  the  United  States 

National  Museum, 
was  collected  in  Ari- 
zona by  Dr.  J.  B. 
White,  United  States 
Army. 

Fig.  194  is  a  design 
on  a  coiled  basket  bowl 
of  the  Apache.  The 
foundation  of  the  bowl 
is  the  rod-and-splint 
pattern,  and  the  sew- 
ing passes  over  it,  un- 
der the  splints  of  the 
coil  below,  the  stitches 
interlocking.  The  de- 
sign is  in  Martynia 
Louisiana .  The  ap- 
parently unsystematic  ornamentation  is,  in  fact,  perfectly 
regular.  Four  lines  of  black  stitching,  of  the  same 
lengths  in  each  of  four  groups,  proceed  from  a  black  ring 
around  the  center.  From  the  ends  of  these  lines  the  sewing 
is  to  the  left  in  regular  curves.  The  four  radiating  lines  are 
repeated,  and  then  the  curved  lines  until  the  border  is  reached. 
The  suggestion  of  lightning  or  the  limbs  of  some  insect  has 
been  made,  but  the  design  has  not  been  explained  by  any 
basketmaker. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  21,493  m  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Arizona  by  Dr.  J.  B.  White, 
United  States  Army. 


FIG.  194. 
COILED  BASKET  BOWL. 

Apache  Indians. 
Collected  by  J.  B.  White. 


obzine  CTE  rmol  ol  IchaJBrn  aril  lo  aaLfida  arit  lo  nohslqBOB  ^ni^iiqiua  K  aniwori2 
eworfz  oals  rijirfw  ngiesb  lenoiinavnoj  E  zi  siugft  lyaoi  ariT      .atugft  isqqu  aril  ni  nworia 

; 


itS    Of 

Mhts  of  six  r?t\v 

rons  on  t 
in  decora  tK»n 
This  st. 


11  ted  St 
1   Museum, 
Ari- 
J.    B. 
:ted    St.. 
Army. 

Fi<  i   1 

on  i-. 

of   the  The 

founda' 


MESCALERO  COILED  BASKETS 


Showing  a  surprising  adaptation  of  the  shades  of  the  material  to  form  an  artistic  design, 
shown  in  the  upper  figure.  The  lower  figure  is  a  conventional  design  which  also  shows 
careful  selection  of  materials. 

-^Collected  by  Walter  Hough 

•gn    ;  \nia 

ap- 

• 

t      same 
ring 

i  he  sewing 
Fhe  Knar 

. 

\x  of  some  insect 
tigs   :.  $  rrf>t  been  explained   1 

United  States 
Dr.  J.  B.  White, 


I   '*    '• 

•    :    -ft  *  *-'• 

Vm 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


467 


Plate  227  represents  a  jar  and  a  plaque  by  the  Mescalero 
Apache  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  collected  by  Dr.  Walter 
Hough,  Catalogue  Nos.  204,651  and  204,646  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum.  Especial  attention  is  directed  to 
the  width  of  the  coils  in  these  baskets.  It  will  be  remembered 


FIG.  195. 

COILED  PLAQUE. 
Navaho  Indians. 

that  the  Fraser  River  tribes  in  British  Columbia  obtained  an 
economical  result  of  widening  coils  by  the  introduction  of 
narrow  strips  of  wood  instead  of  roots  or  bundles  of  grass  for 
the  foundation.  These  Apache  Indians  have  also  discovered 
that  using  two  or  more  rods,  one  lying  on  the  top  of  the  other, 
will  give  the  same  result.  The  stitches  in  yucca  also,  instead 
of  passing  underneath  a  rod  in  the  coil  below,  are  simply  inter- 


468 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


locked  with  the  stitches  underneath.  The  ornamentation  is 
produced  by  different  colours  of  the  same  substance.  The 
outside  of  the  leaf  is  green  in  different  shades,  but  the  inside  of 
the  split  leaf  is  white.  By  exposing  the  inside  or  the  outside 
the  angular  ornamentation  results.  In  such  wide  foundation 


FIG.  196. 
SACRED    BASKET   TRAY. 

Navaho  Indians. 
Collected  by  Governor  Arny. 

the  designs  must  be  very  simple.  The  dark  lines  in  the  lower 
figure  are  produced  by  using  the  small  roots  of  the  same  plant 
in  sewing.  This  fiber  is  very  much  more  brittle  than  the  leaf. 
Comparing  these  two  examples  with  the  plaques  of  the  Hopi 
Indians  demonstrates  better  than  any  other  figures  yet  em- 
ployed the  limitations  of  the  basketmaker  in  the  very  ele- 
ments of  ornamentation.  Each  separate  part  of  the  mosaic 


Plate  228.     See  page  469 

CEREMONIAL  BASKETS  OF  THE  NAVAHO,  ARIZONA 

Photograph  from  Mrs.  I.  H.  Kirkpatrick 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  469 

is  a  long  stitch,  set  vertically  in  the  jar  and  radially 
on  the  plaque  or  bowl.  From  this  the  basketmaker  can 
not  escape. 

Fig.  195  is  labelled  a  coiled  plaque  of  the  Navaho.  In  this 
example  the  foundation  is  a  single  rod.  The  body  colour  of 
the  bowl  is  that  of  the  wood.  The  ornamentation  is  in  splints 
of  rhus  dyed  mahogany  brown  and  black,  and  consists  of  four 
quadrants,  in  each  of  which  is  a  cross-shaped  figure.  The 
boundary  of  the  space  is  black,  filled  in  with  brown.  The  fig- 
ure is  in  the  colour  of  the  wood  and  has  a  black  border.  In, 
the  sewing,  the  stitches  simply  interlock  with  those  under- 
neath. The  border  of  the  spec- 
imen is  worthy  of  study,  being 
what  is  called  elsewhere  false 
braid.  The  Apaches,  on  the 
contrary,  make  borders  in  plain 
coil.  Catalogue  No.  16,510 
in  the  United  States  National 
Museum  was  collected  in  1873 
by  Governor  Arny,  of  New  FlG-  '97 

;       .  BORDER  OF  FIG    196. 

Mexico. 

Plate  228  is  a  collection  of  Navaho  sacred  basket  drums 
belonging  to  C.  P.  Wilcomb.  Baskets  attributed  to  the 
Navaho  are  extremly  uniform  in  every  respect.  On  the  author- 
ity of  Dr.  Washington  Matthews,  the  sewing -material  is  splints 
of  sumac  (Rhus  aromaticd).  Some  Indians  told  Dr.  Hough 
that  a  species  of  willow  growing  along  the  washes  is  some- 
times used.  The  stitches  in  the  sewing  simply  interlock,  and 
there  is  no  attempt  made  to  pass  into  the  foundation  of  the 
coil  underneath.  The  borders  are  in  false  braid  passing  by 
a  figure  "8"  movement  under  the  foundation  and  over  the 
outer  margin.  In  the  ancient  days  a  Navaho  woman  invented 
this  pretty  border.  She  was  seated  under  a  juniper  tree  fin- 
ishing her  work  in  the  old,  plain  way,  when  the  god  Hastse- 
yath  threw  a  small  spray  of  juniper  into  her  basket.  Happy 


470  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

thought !  She  imitated  the  fold  of  the  leaves  on  the  border 
and  the  invention  was  complete  (Matthews). 

The  decoration  also  of  the  Navaho  baskets  is  in  designs 
taking  the  form  of  bands  for  their  sacred  drums  (fig.  196) 
and  of  crosses  (fig.  195)  for  their  sacred  meal  baskets.  The 
coloured  bands  on  the  drums  are  founded  on  a  central  stripe 
which  may  be  light  or  dark,  and  from  the  borders  project 
variously  notched  or  angular  figures.  The  one  characteristic 
to  which  attention  is  always  directed  in  this  ware  is  the  break 
in  the  band.  It  is  mentioned  elsewhere  on  the  authority  of 
Matthews  that  a  line  drawn  from  the  center  of  the  basket 
through  this  open  pathway  will  end  at  the  point  where  the 
basket  was  finished  off,  and  when  it  is  used  as  a  drum  this  is 
the  point  where  the  hand  of  the  medicine  man  must  be  placed 
in  the  plaque,  the  radial  line  pointing  eastward.  Another 
interpretation  of  this,  which  can  not  here  be  proven,  is  that 
this  break  in  the  ornamentation  has  something  to  do  with  the 
passing  backward  and  forward  of  the  spirit  of  the  basket,  as 
in  the  Pueblo  pottery  decoration.*  (See  figs.  196  and  197.) 

Dr.  Ales  Hrdlicka  writes  that  the  Hualapai  and  Havasupai, 
although  associated  with  the  Yuman  family  linguistically, 
are  decidedly  one  with  the  Apaches  in  physical  characteristics. 

Their  basketry,  therefore,  will  have  to  be  compared  to 
that  of  the  Apaches,  and  not  that  of  the  Mission  Indians  of 
southern  California,  who  are  Yuman.  The  foundation  is  a 
solid  stem  with  a  welt.  The  sewing  is  done  with  splints  of 
willow,  and  also  now  with  those  made  from  the  young  and 
tender  suckers  from  the  cottonwood  tree,  from  2  to  3  feet  in 
length. 

The  Hualapai  baskets  are  made  in  white  or  green  fiber 
and  ornamented  with  two  kinds  of  red  or  with  black  fibers. 
Dyes  are  very  rarely  used.  The  green  fiber  is  from  a  bush 
called  Ke-the-6,  growing  in  the  mountains ;  the  brownish-red 

*  See  Washington  Matthews,  The  Night  Chant,  a  Navaho  Ceremony. 
Memoirs  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  VI,  pp.  1-332,  New 
York,  1902. 


Plate  229.     See  page  471 

COILED  BASKET  OF  THE  KOHONINO,  ARIZONA,  SHOWING  METHOD 
OF  FINISHING  OFF 

Collection  of  A.  Hrdlicka 


.ztnooltisri  8£  marfl  baulev  orfw  ,iqo 
learn  rfJiw  rigiri  bailft  10  .uiguoit  gnrl 


Plate  230.    See  page  471 

HAVASUPAI    COILED  BOWLS 

Old  Havasupai  basketwork  was  bartered  with  the  Hopi,  who  valued  them  as  heirlooms, 
though  often  they  may  be  found  in  use  around  the  mealing  troughs,  or  filled  high  with  meal 
and  placed  on  a  shelf. 

Collected  by  Walter  Hough 


< 
~  s 


5  a 

o 

en    '5 
*-     8 

H     ^ 


n 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  471 

fibers  are  roots  (Mi-s'-ma)  of  a  yucca-like  plant  called  M'-nat; 
the  black  fiber  is  from  the  martynia.  A  brighter  red  fiber  is 
from  the  root  of  the  Ma-k'-tu-na,.  a  small  plant  growing  in 
the  mountains.  The  white  ribs  and  splints  are  from  reeds 
known  as  Ke-he-e,  or  K'-he-e-he-vak,  the  former  also  occa- 
sionally from  reeds  called  Ma-tha-ki. 

The  Hualapai  make  five  varieties  of  baskets.     They  are: 

1.  A  shallow,  undecorated  plaque,  for  general  household 
purposes.     It  also  serves  for  parching  seeds.     It   is  nearly 
always  lined  with  pitch  on  the  inside,  which  protects  it  from 
charcoal. 

2.  A  large  cone-shaped  carrying  basket,  called  Ka-thak. 
This  variety  is  almost  always  decorated  with  narrow  bands 
or  isolated  geometric  figures  in  black  or  brown.     The  weav- 
ing is  better  than  on  No.  i,  but  is  not  water-tight. 

3.  The  third  variety,  both  for  household  use  and  in  better 
style,  with  more  decoration,  made  for  sale,  is  flat-bottomed, 
with  globular  or  cylindrical  body,  slightly  narrowing  in  its 
upper  third,  and  in  some  places  flaring  a  little  at  the  border. 

4.  The  fourth  variety    is   the   water  bottles,   of   various 
shapes,  most  often  globose  in  body  and  tapering  into  a  nar- 
row neck.     Covered  inside  and  outside  with  brownish  pitch. 

5.  A  much  better  made  and  more  profusely  decorated 
variety  is  in  the  form  of  a  small,  shallow  plaque. 

Plate  229  represents  a  Kohonino  (Yuman)  coiled  basket. 
While  the  coiling  is  going  on,  the  ends  of  the  splints  are  left 
projecting.  They  are  trimmed  off  all  at  once,  when  the  sew- 
ing is  finished. 

Plate  230,  fig.  2,  represents  a  Havasupai  coiled  basket 
bowl.  The  foundation  is  of  rods  and  splints  of  willow,  and 
the  sewing  is  the  same.  The  most  interesting  feature  is  the 
border.  It  is  false  braid  in  which  two  rows  of  the  coil  are 
involved.  A  single  splint  passes  down  and  includes  both  foun- 
dations, up,  over,  and  under  the  upper  foundation  only,  then 
back  and  under  both  to  the  point  of  beginning.  This  is  an 


472 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


old  specimen  that  had  been  in  the  possession  of  a  family  for 
many  years.  From  the  Sichomovi  (Hopi)  Pueblo,  made  by 
the  Havasupai  (Yuman)  Indians,  collected  by  Dr.  Walter 
Hough. 

The  Apache- Yuma  basketmakers  at  Palomas,  Arizona, 
sit  in  front  of  their  brush  and  straw  shelters  the  same  as  the 
Pimas,  hold  the  right  side  of  the  plaque  or  bowl  inward,  and 
work  their  sewing  toward  the  left  hand.  (G.  C.  Simms,  Field 
Columbian  Museum.) 

The  Mohave  Indians  (Yuman  family)  do  not  make  baskets, 
but  obtain  them  from  other  tribes,  and  examples  will  be  found 
in  every  house.  They  obtain  their  rabbit-skin  robes,  done 
in  twined  weaving,  from  Paiutes  (Shoshonean  family)  and 
Walapai  (Yuman  family).  The  Mohaves  make  constant  use 
of  the  wrapped  weaving.  (See  page  67  and  Plate  17.) 

The  Chemehuevi  are  Shoshonean  linguistically,  and  are 
now  located  on  the  Colorado  River  Agency,  Arizona.  They 
make  coiled  baskets.  The  foundation  is  a  rod,  and  the  sewing 
is  done  with  willow  or  other  splints,  maybe  cottonwood.  The 
black  figures  are  from  the  pods  of  martynia.  Only  two  colours 
are  used ;  frequently,  however,  feathers  are  introduced  under 
the  stitches.  They  are  the  most  tastefully  made  and  the  most 
beautiful  baskets  in  that  whole  region.  Catalogue  No.  2 11,028 
is  a  Chemehuevi  plaque  in  the  National  Museum,  collected 
by  Captain  Paul  B.  Carter,  U.S.A.  The  ornamentation  con- 
sists of  a  black  center  and  two  bands  done  in  martynia  pod. 
The  surface  is  covered  with  a  network  of  rhombs.  Plate  231 
is  a  collection  of  Chemehuevi  plaques  and  jars  in  coiled  weav- 
ing now  in  the  United  States  National  Museum.  Especial 
attention  is  called  to  the  purely  geometric  figures  on  the  sur- 
face, star,  toothed  lines,  rhombs  in  bands,  crenelated  and  ser- 
rated lines  in  great  variety.  In  the  central  figure  the  middle 
band  recalls  the  design,  a  modification  of  which  becomes  the 
well-known  flying  butterfly  pattern.  (See  Plate  195.) 

The  tribes  of  the  Piman  family  are  in  two  groups,  the 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


473 


northern,  including  Opata,  Papago,  and  Pima  proper;  and 
the  southern,  including  Cahita,  Cora,  Tarahumara,  and  Tepe- 
huana,  wholly  confined  to  Mexico.  By  many  scholars  the 
Piman  family  would  be  made  part  of  the  great  Uto-Aztecan. 
The  Piman  basketry  is  unmistakable.  The  foundation 
is  of  split  cattail  stems  (Typha  latifolia) ,  and  the  sewing  is  with 
willow  (Salix  nigrd)  and  pods  of 
martynia,  but  the  stitches  are  so  fine 
and  the  work  so  uniform  that  the 
surface  is  not  rugose,  but  smooth. 
The  Pima  decoration  is  the  exuber- 
ance of  fretwork.  In  the  National 
Museum  are  many  old  pieces  brought 
home  by  Army  officers.  Edward 
Palmer  also  collected  many,  and 
recently  Dr.  Frank  Russell  has  en- 
riched the  collections  with  material 
which  will  be  the  subject  of  a  special 
monograph.  Coiled  work  without 
foundation  finds  application  among 
the  Pima  in  the  network  which  sup- 
ports their  gourd  receptacles.  (See 

fig.    I08.)  FIG.  198. 

*  .  GOURD  IN  COILED  NETWORK. 

It  has  been  said  that  basket -mak-          Pima  Indians,  Arizona. 

.     ,        j  ,  ,,        -p..  Cat.  No.  76,947,  U.S. N.M. 

ing  was  introduced  among  the  Pima      collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 
ioo  years  ago,    when   the   Maricopa 

sought  shelter  among  them  from  the  slaughter  of  the  Yuma. 
At  that  time  the  Pima  made  pottery  only.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Maricopa  allowed  basket-making  to  fall  into  disuse, 
and  now  make  pottery  only.  The  Mohave,  Pima,  and  Papago 
make  matting  in  twilled  work,  and  also  carrying  frames 
covered  with  rude  coiled  lace.  (See  Plate  232.)  A 
beautiful  example  of  the  last  named  is  in  the  National 
Museum,  collected  for  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology  by 
Frank  Russell. 


474  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

They  had  no  pails  or  vessels  of  wood,  but  were  not  slow  to 
invent.  They,  therefore,  took  willows,  which  grow  in  abundance 
along  the  river,  and  a  reed,  and  stripped  the  bark,  then  very 
adroitly  split  these  with  their  teeth  and  wove  them  so  closely 
together  as  to  hold  water.  This  they  accomplished  by  means  of 
needles  or  thorns  of  cactus,  of  which  there  are  over  one  hundred 
varieties  in  this  territory.  They  used  these  baskets  while  digging 
small  ditches,  the  women  filling  them  with  earth  and  carrying 
them  up  the  bank.* 

Catalogue  No.  76,033,  United  States  National  Museum 
(see  fig.  100),  is  a  carrying  basket  (child's)  of  the  Pima  Indians, 
a  pyramidal  bag  netted  of  the  fiber  of  the  agave ;  at  the  ver- 
tex is  an  opening  3  inches  in  diameter.  The  base  is  attached 
to  a  hoop  by  a  string  of  agave  fiber,  with  which  the  hoop  is 
served ;  the  bag  is  decorated  with  fretted  work  painted  black 
and  .red.  Two  stems  of  the  Cereus  giganteus,  34^  inches  long 
and  £  inch  in  diameter,  are  passed  from  the  outside  of  the 
hoop  to  the  inside  of  the  bag,  10  inches  apart,  thence  down 
till  they  pass  through  the  opening  in  the  vertex ;  at  this  point 
they  cross  each  other  at  an  acute  angle  and  extend  7^  inches 
beyond;  two  other  stems,  14  inches  long,  are  passed  into  the 
bag,  in  front,  in  the  same  way,  9  inches  apart,  and  their  ends 
stop  at  the  crossing  of  the  other  sticks ;  at  this  point  the  four 
are  firmly  lashed  together  and  the  margin  of  the  bag  at  the 
vertex  opening  is  fastened  to  the  sticks. 

Where  the  sticks  enter  the  bag  the  hoop  is  tied  to  them 
by  a  cord  of  black  horsehair;  these  also  serve  to  tie  the  load 
in  the  basket.  Near  the  bottom,  a  small  brace  of  wood  is 
passed  through  the  meshes  of  the  bag  and  in  front  of  the  sticks 
on  either  side,  to  give  it  additional  strength.  A  piece  of  mat- 
ting of  split  reeds,  16  by  7  inches,  is  attached  to  the  back  of 
the  basket  to  protect  the  body  of  the  carrier. 

A  strong  cord  of  twisted  agave  fiber,  3  feet  long,  is  looped 
around  the  vertex ;  the  ends  passed  along  the  posterior  sticks, 
outside  the  bag,  are  fastened  to  the  sticks  by  a  loop  of  fiber. 

*  Isaac  T.  Whittemore,  Among  the  Pimas,  p.  53,  Albany,  N.  Y.,  1893. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


475 


Above,  the  ends  are  attached  to  the  forehead  band,  woven 
from  the  softened  fiber  of  the  Yucca  baccata;  it  is  double,  and 
7  inches  long  and  2  inches  wide.  The  staff  is  of  wood  2 1  inches 
long  and  \  inch  in  diameter,  painted  red,  ornamented  at  upper 
end  with  buckskin  strings,  and  served  with  agave  twine;  the 
upper  end  is  notched.  The  staff  is  also  used  to  support  the 
basket  in  an  upright  position  when  it  is  unslung.  (See  figs. 
100  and  106.)  Width  above,  transverse,  13  inches;  antero- 
posterior,  1 1  inches ; 
depth  behind,  u£ 
inches ;  front,  7^ 
inches.  Collected  by 
Edward  Palmer.  This 
peculiar  lacework 
exists  also  among 
Maricopas,  Papagos, 
and  Coras. 

Fig.  199  is  a  coiled 
bowl  of  the  Pimas. 
The  foundation  is 
made  of  grass  stems  or 

cattail,  and  the  sewing  is  done  with  narrow  and  uniform 
splints  of  cottonwood  or  willow,  the  black  figures  being 
worked  in  with  martynia.  The  puzzling  and  intricate 
ornamentation  is  reducible  to  a  few  most  simple  elements, 
and  easy  of  construction.  Four  series  of  vertical  lines 
start  from  the  black  bottom.  At  uniform  distances  from 
the  beginning,  all  the  way  out  to  the  rim,  horizontal  lines 
proceed  to  the  left,  terminating  in  small  black  squares.  It 
can  easily  be  seen  that,  while  the  vertical  lines  are  narrow  and 
depend  upon  the  width  of  the  stitches,  the  horizontal  lines 
must  necessarily  be  as  wide  as  the  rows  of  sewing.  About 
two-thirds  of  the  way  from  the  beginning  a  new  set  of  zigzags 
is  started,  and  this  is  continued  to  the  outer  margin. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  9,376  in  the  United  States 


FIG.  199. 
COILED  BOWL. 

Pima  Indians. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 


476  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

National    Museum,    was    procured   in   Arizona   by    Edward 
Palmer,  and  is  figured  by  Holmes.* 

Fig.  200  is  a  coiled  basket  bowl  of  the  Pima  Indians.  The 
foundation  is  of  shredded  material  and  the  sewing  is  in  splints 
of  willow.  The  decoration  is  in  three  series,  as  follows :  Bot- 


FlG.  200. 

COILED  BOWL. 

Pima  Indians. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 

torn,  solid  black ;  the  main  portion  of  the  body  is  a  double  row 
of  fretwork  in  single  lines  of  black;  on  the  upper  margin  is  a 
single  row  of  fretwork.  The  up-and-down-lines  in  this  work 
are  partly  perpendicular  and  partly  sloping  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  the  widening  of  the  basket.  On  the  extreme 

*  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1888,  p.  220,  fig. 
322 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


477 


edge,    as   a   finish   to   the  basket,  is  a  false  braid   in   black 
martynia. 

Fig.  201  is  a  coiled  basket  bowl  of  the  Pima  Indians.  The 
foundation  is  in  shredded  material  of  rush,  the  sewing  in  wil- 
low and  martynia.  The  ornamentation  consists  of  a  black 


FIG.  201. 
COILED  BOWL. 

Pima  Indians. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 

bottom,  out  of  which  rise  four  right-angle  triangles,  to  which 
is  attached  a  curious  fretwork  made  up  of  L-shaped  elements. 
There  are  a  number  of  smaller  right-angle  triangles  worked 
into  the  figures  at  various  points,  showing  that  this  is  a  con- 
stant idea  in  the  mind  of  the  manufacturer.  Diameter,  12^ 
inches;  height,  4!  inches. 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  76,040  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected,  with  many  others,  in  Arizona, 
by  Edward  Palmer.  Plate  233  is  a  piece  of  the  same  type 
from  the  collection  of  C.  E.  Rumsey. 

Plate  234  represents  two  Pima  basket  bowls  in  the  United 
States  National  Museum,  collected  by  Dr.  Frank  Russell,  of 
the  Bureau  of  Ethnology.  The  foundation,  sewing,  and  bor- 
der are  the  same  as 
in  other  examples. 
This  plate  is  intro- 
duced for  the  purpose 
of  showing  how  the 
basketmaker  works 
out  a  series  of  con- 
centric figures  whose 
elements  are  straight 
lines  mixed  with  seg- 
ments of  circles.  The 
lower  figure  is  based 
on  a  circle  in  black 
from  which  four 
points  project.  The 
concentric  rings  are 
based  upon  this  fun- 
damental  figure 

absolutely.  From  the  points,  segments  of  circles  increase  in 
length  as  they  proceed  outward.  From  the  concave  quarter 
of  the  central  figure  circular  segments  decrease  in  length  as 
they  proceed  outward,  and  the  ends  of  these  two  sets  of  seg- 
ments are  connected  by  ragged  straight  lines.  Finally,  the 
spaces  at  the  four  quarters  on  the  rim  are  filled  with  small 
triangles  in  black.  Could  anything  be  more  artistic  than  this 
association  of  the  simplest  elements  in  basket-weaving? 

The  upper  figure  is  on  the  same  sort  of  foundation,  only 
concentric  segments  alternate  with  series  of  rectangles  arranged 


FIG.  309. 
COILED  BOWL. 

Pima  Indians. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 


Plate  233.     See  page  478 

OLD  COILED  BOWL  OF  THE  PIMAS,  ARIZONA.    DESIGNS  IN  COMPLEX 

FRETWORK 

Collection  of  C.  E.  Rumsey 


Plate  234.     See  page  478 

COILED  BOWLS  OF  THE  PIMAS,  ARIZONA 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


479 


in  checker  patterns.  These  rectangles  are  all  the  same  size, 
and  are  based  on  the  four  quarters  projecting  from  the  black 
circle.  The  widening  of  the  pattern  is  all  accomplished  by 
the  lengthening  of  the  circular  segments.* 

Fig.  202  is  a  coiled  basket  bowl  of  the  Pima  Indians,  Piman 
family,  in  southern  Arizona.     The  foundation  of  the  coil  is 


FIG.  203. 
COILED  GRANARY. 

Pima  Indians. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 

in  stems  of  finely  shredded  fiber  of  cattail  (Typha  latifolid). 
The  sewing  is  in  splints  of  willow,  the  stitches  passing  over 
the  foundation  and  interlocking  with  those  underneath.  The 
sewing  material  is  somewhat  rigid,  so  that  the  stitches  are  not 
pressed  home  and  the  foundation  shows  between.  Many  of 

*  Frank  Russell,  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology  (in  prepara- 
tion). 


480  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

the  stitches  are  split  is  the  sewing,  but  it  does  not  appear  that 
it  is  systematically  done  for  the  purpose  of  ornamentation, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  Salish  and  Klikitat  tribes  of  the  farther 
north.  The  designs  are  in  splints  of  martynia  pod.  The 
elements  of  decoration  are  in  threes,  and  doubtless  have  sym- 
bolic meanings,  but  these  are  not  known.  Diameter,  n^ 
inches;  height,  3^  inches. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  5,548  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Arizona  by  the  veteran 
explorer,  Edward  Palmer. 

Fig.  203  is  a  small  granary  of  the  Pima  Indians,  Piman 
family,  in  coiled  work.  The  foundation  is  a  bundle  of  wheat 
straw  averaging  about  half  an  inch  in  diameter.  The  sewing 
is  done  in  willow  bark,  the  strips  varying  in  width  from  a 
quarter  to  half  an  inch.  No  attempt  is  made  to  crowd  the 
sewing-material  so  as  to  hide  the  foundation;  indeed,  this 
would  be  impossible  because  of  the  width  of  the  willow  bark. 
The  effect  on  the  surface  is  to  produce  almost  perpendicular 
lines  from  the  center  to  the  border.  New  rows  are  added  as 
the  coils  enlarge. 

The  Pima  Indians  live  partly  on  vegetable  diet,  the  fruit 
of  the  mesquit  and  of  other  plants,  and  they  use  the  granary 
baskets  on  platforms  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  dried 
material  out  of  the  way  of  rodents. 

To  make  the  detail  structure  more  clear,  a  square  inch  is 
given  in  fig.  57. 

This  specimen,  Catalogue  No.  76,046  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum,  was  collected  in  Arizona  by  Edward 
Palmer. 

Plate  235  represents  a  Pima  basketmaker.  The  Piman 
family  have  been  supposed  to  be  the  connecting  link  between 
the  Shoshonean  of  the  Great  Interior  Basin  and  the  Aztec  or 
Nahuatl  family  of  Mexico.  In  their  present  situation,  how- 
ever, they  are  cut  off  from  the  northern  Shoshonean  by  the 
extension  of  the  Yuman  family. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  481 

MIDDLE  AND  SOUTH  AMERICA 

This  genius  (Clotho)  led  the  souls  first  to  cloths,  and  drew 
them  within  the  revolution  of  the  spindle  impelled  by  the  hand. — 
PLATO'S  REPUBLIC 

On  the  border  line  between  the  Republic  of  Mexico  and 
the  United  States  is  a  transition  between  the  standard  forms 
which  have  hitherto  been  studied  and  the  more  open 
types  of  lacework  and  loomwork.  Coiled  basketry  of 
well-known  varieties  continues  on  southward,  both  in 
the  lowlands  and  in  the  mountainous  regions,  to  within 
a  few  miles  of  the  City  of  Mexico.  Variations  from  these 
types  are  also  in  evidence,  both  coiled  and  twined,  the 
former  predominating.  Foundations  of  grass  more  than 
an  inch  thick  are  built  into  immense  baskets  for  carry- 
ing, and  also  into  granaries  for  holding  the  crops  of 
seeds  and  nuts,  the  sewing  being  done  with  wide  strips 
of  bark,  wood,  and  leaves.  Taking  these  coarse  baskets 
for  a  motive,  smaller  and  finer  ones  are  done  in  better 
material,  but  still  the  stitches  are  half  an  inch  apart. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  surprise  in  this,  since  the  linguistic 
families  which  are  represented  in  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and 
California  are  also  continued  into  the  Republic  of  Mexico. 
In  this  area  the  student  is  clearly  "within  the  revolution  of 
the  spindle."  In  addition  to  the  coiled  work  just  mentioned 
will  be  found  coiling  of  the  hammock  type,  and,  interesting 
to  know,  the  Chippewa  on  Lake  Superior  and  the  Loucheux 
type  on  the  Mackenzie  River  are  here  reproduced  in  the  carry- 
ing basket  (see  fig.  106).  Starting  out  from  very  plain, 
coarse  varieties  of  this  work,  it  passes  on  into  the  lacework 
and  netted  burden  baskets  of  the  Pima,  Papago,  and  Mohave. 
(See  Plate  232.)  The  figures  wrought  into  the  lacework  bas- 
kets are  the  same  as  are  to  be  seen  in  the  labyrinthian  pat- 
terns on  the  basket  bowls  of  the  Pima.  Quite  as  interesting 
as  any  of  these  types,  the  wrapped  weaving  before  described 


482  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

is  found  in  burden  baskets  of  the  Yuma  tribes.*  It  must  be 
recalled  at  this  point,  however,  that  Hudson  mentions  the 
same  style  of  workmanship  among  the  Porno  Indians  for  roof 
building  and  traps,  and  W.  H.  Holmes  brought  from  California 
a  framework  for  carrying  birds  in  which  the  rods  are  held  in 
place  by  a  similar  wrapping.  There  is  also  in  the  National 
Museum  an  old  coarse  mortar  basket  made  of  sticks  which 
are  bound  together  in  the  same  way.  A  great  deal  of  twilled 
and  wicker  work  comes  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  City 
of  Mexico  and  from  Central  America,  and  a  species  of  coiled 
sewing  which  exists  sporadically  all  the  way  from  the  Arctic 
Ocean  to  the  Strait  of  Magellan.  The  stitch,  in  addition  to 
passing  around  the  foundations  to  hold  them  together,  also 
makes  a  wrap  about  the  standing  part  between  the  coils. 
Modern  coiled  ware  in  great  quantities  is  made  up  from  agave 
fiber  of  fine  quality,  but  it  resembles  African  work  more  than 
American.  A  variety  of  forms  and  uses  exists  in  baskets  in 
Mexico;  among  others,  the  immense  hats.  The  Caribs  on 
the  Mosquito  coast  of  Nicaragua  are  said  to  have  plaited  a 
pretty  water-tight  basket  of  reeds,  called  "patapee,"  but 
these  people  had  been  in  touch  with  natives  of  Africa,  who 
knew  how  to  make  water-tight  baskets  from  the  time  of  Moses, 
at  least.  The  Tlaxcala  Indians  used  twined  weaving  in  mak- 
ing slings.  Types  of  work  just  mentioned  continue  on  into 
the  Central  American  States.  No  account  is  here  made  of 
the  fine  weaving  and  needlework,  in  which  typical  and  extra- 
ordinary patterns  are  wrought,  because  they  are  across  the 
boundary  line,  and  are  no  longer  in  the  family  of  basketry 
made  merely  by  hand  without  machinery. 

Twined  basketry  and  matting  are  preserved  in  the  Pea- 
body  Museum  from  prehistoric  burial  caves  in  Coahuila, 

*  To  bring  together  the  net-like  fiber  of  this  area,  the  following  list  will 
be  helpful:  (i)  The  common  coil  without  foundation  is  universal ;  (2)  The 
wrapped  work,  Dieguenos,  Coahuillas,  Mohaves,  and  other  Yuman  tribes; 
(3)  Lace  work — Pimas,  Papagos,  Maricopas,  and  Coras;  (4)  Netted  or 
knotted  carrying  receptacles,  Mohaves. 


H  o  '5 
-S  £ 


PQ 


Plate  237.     See  page  483 

YAQUI  COVERED  BASKETS  IN  DOUBLE  TWILLED 
WEAVING,  SONORA,  MEX. 

From  negatives  in  Am.  Mus.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  N.  Y. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  483 

Mexico;  among  the  Tlaxcala  Indians  (Nahuatlan  family)  in 
Central  Mexico ;  from  prehistoric  graves  at  Ancon,  Peru,  and 
Arica,  Chile ;  from  graves  at  Pisaqua,  Chile ;  from  the  Guatos 
Indians  (Tapuyan  family),  in  southern  Brazil,  and  from  the 
Cadioes  Indians  (Guaycuruan  family),  on  the  Paragua  River. 
(C.  C.  Willoughby.) 

Plate  236,  United  States  National  Museum,  was  brought 
by  Frank  Russell  from  Tarahumara  Indians  of  northern 
Mexico.  It  is  in  the  form  of  the  so-called  "telescope  trunk," 
and  old  specimens  of  the  National  Museum  were  collected 
many  years  ago  by  Edward  Palmer.  The  material  is  a  kind 
of  rush,  and  the  weaving  is  in  twilled  work.  Such  baskets  are 
employed  for  holding  all  sorts  of  useful  articles,  but  especially 
in  connection  with  religious  practices  they  are  the  depository 
of  charms  and  fetish  objects. 

The  Yaquis,  of  Sonora,  Mexico,  says  Palmer,  split  the 
stems  of  Arundinaria  for  basketry  by  pounding  them  care- 
fully with  stones.  The  reeds  divide  along  the  lines  of  least 
resistance  into  splints  of  varying  width,  which  are  assorted 
and  used  in  different  textures.  They  now  manufacture  to 
order  floor  mats,  porch  screens,  and  the  like,  and  sell  them 
in  Guaymas. 

Dr.  Hrdlicka  spent  much  time  among  the  Yaquis  and 
brought  a  varied  collection  of  their  basketry  to  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History.  They  make  several  varieties, 
all  in  twilled  weaving.  The  coarsest  are  for  household  use, 
and  have  no  covers.  They  are  usually  quadrilateral,  and  meas- 
ure up  to  twenty-four  inches  in  length.  Examples  of  much 
finer  quality  serve  for  the  holding  of  small  objects.  These 
are  made  in  several  forms,  probably  the  rarest  being  cylindri- 
cal and  covered,  never  exceeding  eighteen  inches  in  diameter. 
Plate  237  shows  two  of  the  specimens  mentioned  above.  They 
are  in  narrow  splints  of  the  yucca  palm  of  Sonora,  and  the 
weaving  is  double.  The  work  was  begun  at  the  bottom,  built 
up  to  the  border,  and  the  process  reversed  so  as  to  make 


484  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

another  fine  basket  outside  and  closely  adhering  to  the  first. 
A  more  common  variety,  of  better  form,  is  found  in  many 
sizes  up  to  twelve  inches  in  height  or  diameter.  They  are 
not  double  throughout,  but  a  broad  decorative  band,  made 
of  a  second  layer  of  fibers,  is  added  to  the  outside  of  the  body 
and  of  the  cover.  Double  baskets  are  also  made  in  bottle 
shape,  of  various  sizes,  with  covers.  They  are  doubtless 
made  for  sale.  Dr.  Hrdlicka  obtained  a  number  from  Yaqui 
captives — women  confined  at  Guadalajara.  Charming  deco- 
rative effects  are  produced  on  them  by  the  fineness  of  the  fila- 
ments, the  regularity  of  the  technic,  and  variations  in  the 
twilled  weaving.  The  Yaqui  hats  are  broad-brimmed,  with 
semiglobular  tops,  all  in  twilled  weaving,  and  some  are  of 
fine  quality.  They  are,  in  most  examples,  double,  and  similar 
to  the  bottles  in  the  variations  of  technic. 

The  Huichole  Indians,  living  in  the  State  of  Salisco,  Mexico, 
belong  to  the  Aztecan  branch  of  the  great  Shoshonean  family. 
They  have  been  described,  among  others,  by  Lumholtz,  and 
are  living  in  a  state  of  native  simplicity.  The  few  baskets 
that  they  make  are  in  twilled  weaving,  with  covers,  and 
are  18  inches  or  less  in  length,  4  to  6  in  width,  and  the 
same  in  height.  Used  chiefly  to  hold  ceremonial  objects. 
Similar  baskets  are  woven  by  the  Tarahumara  (Piman) ,  State 
of  Chihuahua,  and  also  by  the  Tepehuanos  (Piman)  in  Durango. 
These  low,  tray-shaped,  rectangular  baskets,  with  covers,  are 
the  common  packing  cases  among  these  tribes  of  northern 
Mexico  mentioned.  (Hrdlicka.) 

A  wicker  basket  from  Santa  Maria  del  Rio,  fourteen 
leagues  south  of  San  Luis  Potosi,  Mexico,  is  Catalogue 
No.  76,925,  United  States  National  Museum,  made  from  the 
prepared  stems  of  willow.  The  weaving  is  not  after  the  fashion 
of  the  common  market  basket,  but  its  parts  are  worked  spi- 
rally in  such  manner  that  the  smaller  ends  of  the  stems  termi- 
nate in  a  braided  band  around  the  top  of  the  body.  (Compare 
fig.  190.)  This  arrangement  reminds  one  of  Dr.  Matthews's 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES   OF   BASKETRY  485 

Study  in  Butts  and  Tips.*  The  warp  consists  of  groups  of 
fine  stems  arranged  in  fours.  As  the  bottom  is  oblong,  five 
of  the  groups  pass  straight  across  it  widthwise,  while  at  the 
ends  others  radiate  from  the  foci  of  the  ellipse.  The  weft  of 
the  bottom  is  formed  by  means  of  fourteen  stems,  seven  of 
which  run  in  one  direction  and  seven  in  the  other,  the  smaller 
ends  being  fastened  off  on  the  border.  The  body  is  built  up  in 
the  same  way.  In  the  ordinary  wicker  basket  a  stem  is  woven 
among  the  warps,  and  when  the  end  is  reached  another  stem 
takes  its  place,  and  so  on;  but  in  this  example  all  the  weft 
stems  of  the  body  begin  at  the  very  bottom  and  are  wound 
in  a  spiral  up  to  the  upper  margin.  At  this  border,  the  warp 
stems  are  all  bent  to  the  right  for  an  inch  and  a  half  and  then 
turned  back  again,  being  intertwined  in  a  sort  of  openwork 
diagonal  weaving.  To  form  the  handle,  seven  stems  on  each 
side  are  thrust  between  the  weft,  and  these  bundles  are  wrapped 
about  each  other  to  form  the  twisted  handle,  the  smaller  ends 
being  deflected  so  that  the  ends  of  the  stems  which  form  the 
body  and  the  ends  of  the  handle  and  the  stems  of  the  body 
are  all  woven  together  to  form  the  braid  work  at  the  top. 
Collected  by  Edward  Palmer. 

H.  Ling  Roth,  in  his  paper  on  the  aborigines  of  Hispaniola.f 
says  that,  although  none  of  the  histories  make  reference  to  the 
island  in  which  baskets  were  manufactured,  nor  even  to  the 
material  out  of  which  they  are  made,  there  is  occasional  men- 
tion of  them,  proving  that  formerly,  as  now,  the  Caribs  and 
their  tribes  knew  how  to  weave  basket  work.  The  Spaniards, 
both  in  Hispaniola  and  Cuba,  on  several  occasions  found  men's 
heads  cut  off  and  sewed  up  with  great  care  in  small  baskets. 
He  quotes  Benzoni  in  speaking  of  a  feast  in  which  baskets 
were  adorned  with  roses  and  various  flowers.  Columbus 
found  baskets,  in  Guadeloupe,  full  of  men's  bones. 

*  American  Anthropologist,  Washington,  V,  1892,  pp.  345-350. 
t  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
XVI,  p.  283. 


486  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

A  glance  at  the  map  of  northern  South  America  shows 
how  easy  it  is  to  pass  from  the  Windward  Islands  up  the  Ori- 
noco and  over  the  drainage  of  the  Rio  Negro,  down  to  the 
Amazon.  On  this  central  position  it  is  not  difficult  to  make 
communication  with  the  highlands  of  middle  Brazil,  Bolivia, 
eastern  Peru,  and  Ecuador,  and  to  pass  from  the  Xingu  River 
to  Paraguay  is  easy.  This  explanation  will  clear  the  way  for 
the  collection  of  baskets  now  to  be  described. 

The  seventieth  parallel  from  Greenwich  may  be  used  to 
divide  South  America  into  east  and  west  basketry  sub-areas. 
The  West  Indies  will  be  counted  with  the  eastern  portions. 
The  few  widespread  linguistic  families  serve  as  a  bond  to  hold 
the  tribes  in  mind.  At  the  extreme  north,  the  Carib  and  the 
Arawak  are  conspicuous;  the  Tupi-Guarani  and  the  Geez 
answer  for  Brazil ;  over  the  Amazon  watershed,  the  La  Plata 
areas,  the  Gran  Chaco  tribes  follow.  Patagonia  and  Fuegia 
complete  the  series.  Over  a  large  portion  of  this  eastern 
region  the  types  of  weaving  practised  in  the  southern  States 
of  the  Union  prevail.  On  the  western  side  of  the  continent, 
in  the  Andean  valleys,  the  basketry  is  more  varied  and  inter- 
esting, as  the  description  and  illustrations  will  show.  The 
information  which  follows  is  far  from  complete.  The  little 
said  will  serve  at  least  as  a  starting  point,  and  show 
that,  aboriginally  and  technically,  there  was  only  one 
America. 

Plate  238  shows  an  Indian  woman  standing  in  front  of 
the  agave  plant — a  fitting  combination,  since  in  Mexico, 
Central  America,  and  northern  portions  of  South  America 
the  agave  is  to  the  native  population  an  enduring  friend.  In 
modern  industries  it  has  not  lost  its  influence.  The  lechi- 
guilla,  ixtl,  sisal,  and  other  standard  fibers  are  therefrom.  In 
old  times  it  was  the  substance  from  which  receptacles,  cloth- 
ing, parts  of  household  utensils  and  conveniences,  and  many 
other  useful  things  were  made.  The  figure  standing  in  front 
of  the  plant  might  be  called  the  Clotho  of  the  agave,  whose 


A  S  • 
V      \        ";i 

-\\  X 


' 


\   ;/ 


^  V     It i_i 


Plate  238.     See  page  486 

INDIAN  BASKET-MAKER  STANDING  IN  FRONT  OF  HER  PLANT, 
VENEZUELA 

Photograph  from  R.  Bartleman 


Plate  239.     See  page  487 

TWILLED  BASKETRY  OF  THE  ARAWAK  INDIANS,  BRITISH  GUIANA 

Collected  by  R.  Figyelmesey,  for  U.  S.  National  Museum 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  487 

skilful  fingers  will  turn  the  ideal  plant  into  many  supplies  of 
wants. 

Baskets  from  British  Guiana  are  like  those  described  by 
E.  F.  im  Thurn  in  his  work  entitled  Among  the  Indians  of 
British  Guiana.  The  specimens  in  the  National  Museum 
are  all  of  the  twilled  pattern,  wrought  from  a  brown  vegetable 
fiber  that  shows  the  same  on  both  sides.  This  twill  is  used 
with  good  effect  in  the  diagonally  woven  cassava  strainers, 
widely  distributed,  which  may  be  contracted  in  length  by  a 
corresponding  increase  of  width.  When  the  cassava  is  packed 
into  this  strainer  the  latter  is  suspended  and  a  great  weight 
fastened  to  the  bottom.  The  same  device  is  used  among  us 
by  country  housewives  in  making  curds.  There  is  an  entire 
lack  of  gaudy  dyes  in  the  Guiana  baskets,  the  only  colours  being 
the  natural  hue  of  the  wood  and  a  jet-black  varnish.  The 
gorgeous  plumage  of  the  birds  replaces  the  dyes  in  orna- 
mentation. (See  Plate  239.) 

The  material  used  for  basketwork  among  the  Indians  of 
Guiana  is  the  split  stem  of  a  kind  of  maranta  (I schnosiphori) 
called  iturite  by  the  Indians.  For  rough  work,  other  species 
of  iturite  are  used,  and  for  the  roughest  of  all  the  unsplit 
stems  of  certain  creepers,  especially  one  called  by  the  Indians 
mamamoorie  (Carludovica  plumierii}. 

The  so-called  pegalls  (packalls)  are  generally  square.  The 
basket  and  lid  are  the  same  shape;  the  latter,  being  larger, 
slips  over  the  former  and  entirely  covers  it.  Many  Caribs  make 
their  pegalls  of  an  oblong  shape,  with  gracefully  curved  lines, 
and  adorn  them  with  long  strings  of  thick,  white  cotton  on 
which  are  knots  of  coloured  feathers.  Sometimes  the  true 
Caribs  make  the  pegall  and  lid  double,  and  between  the  two 
layers  of  basketwork  certain  leaves  (I schnosiphori)  are  inser- 
ted to  make  the  whole  waterproof.  Here  is  another  example 
of  double  weaving  noted  in  several  parts  of  North  America. 

Another  basket,  shaped  like  a  slipper,  is  the  suriana,  for 
carrying  heavy  loads.  This  useful  form  has  a  wide  distribu- 


488  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

tion,  being  seen  in  Guatemala.  The  "  quake,"  another  bas- 
ket, is  used  for  storing  provisions.  It  also  serves  as  a  cage. 
It  is  made  of  open  wickerwork,  with  a  rounded  bottom.  Most 
of  the  baskets  are  manufactured  in  the  same  way  and  of  the 
same  material.  The  Nikari  karus,  living  on  the  Brazilian 
borders,  make  their  pegalls  of  the  leaves  of  the  palm  (Orbigna) , 
very  rare  in  British  Guiana.  These  are  square  or  oblong.* 

Plates  240  and  241  are  from  photographs  presented  by 
the  distinguished  ethnologist,  Dr.  Carl  von  den  Steinen.  They 
represent  carrying  baskets  from  eastern  Brazil  in  the  collection 
of  the  Berlin  Ethnographic  Museum.  In  order  to  bring  the 
structure  into  comparison,  baskets  of  the  same  functions  were 
selected.  The  following  descriptions,  aided  by  the  photo- 
graphs, will  make  plain  the  structure. 

Plate  240,  fig.  i,  is  a  carrying  basket  (hasiri)  of  the  Jama- 
madi  Indians,  living  on  the  Rio  Purus,  in  the  collection  of 
Paul  Ehrenreich.  The  warp  is  crossed,  and  the  weft  passes 
through  the  warp  in  regular  order,  so  as  to  produce  hexagonal 
openings.  The  border  is  formed  by  simply  turning  over  the 
ends  of  the  warp  and  weaving  them  backward.  The  head 
strap  is  a  wide  strip  of  inner  bark.  Prof.  J.  B.  Steere  collected 
for  the  United  States  National  Museum  a  fine  specimen  of 
this  same  type  of  weaving  of  the  Jamamadi,  resembling,  in 
fact,  fig.  2  of  this  plate.  (See  Plate  95,  fig.  5.) 

Fig.  2  is  a  carrying  basket  (shibati)  of  the  Hypurina 
Indians,  living  on  the  Rio  Purus,  collected  by  Paul  Ehrenreich. 
The  warp  is  crossed  and  the  weaving  is  done  as  in  fig.  i,  but 
there  are  twice  as  many  weft  splints,  the  hexagonal  spaces 
being  crossed  by  them.  The  border  is  formed  of  a  hoop  of 
wood.  Strips  are  attached  to  the  side  of  the  basket  for  strength, 
and  string  loops  at  the  top  for  attachment  of  the  head  band, 
which  is  in  tough  inner  bark  of  a  tree,  as  in  No.  i. 

Fig.  3  is  a  carrying  basket  (koho)  from  the  Paressi  Indians, 

*  E.  F.  im  Thurn,  Among  the  Indians  of  British  Guiana,  p.  282,  London, 
1883. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY  489 

on  the  upper  Tapajoz  River,  Brazil,  in  the  collection  of  Dr. 
Carl  von  den  Steinen.  This  is  an  elegant  piece  of  work  and 
worthy  of  study.  One-half  of  the  warp  elements  are  vertical 
and  the  other  inclined.  The  weft  passes  through  the  inter- 
stices formed  by  the  crossed  warp  in  twos  and  threes.  At 
the  top,  a  hoop  is  used  for  strengthening,  the  warp  turned 
back  and  held  firm  by  a  single  row  of  three-strand  weaving. 
On  the  sides,  a  rope  is  attached  to  the  weft  elements  for 
loops,  and  the  head  band  is  made,  as  in  the  other  specimens, 
from  the  tough  inner  bark  of  a  tree. 

Fig.  4  is  a  child's  carrying  basket  (mayaku)  of  the  Bakairi 
Indians,  on  the  upper  Xingu  River,  Brazil,  and  fig.  5,  an 
example  for  adults  by  the  same  tribe,  from  the  collection  of 
Dr.  von  den  Steinen.  They  are  made  of  four  elongated  hoops 
of  wood.  One  furnishes  the  bed  or  bottom  of  the  frame,  two 
others  the  sides,  and  the  smaller  one  the  end.  Those  who  are 
accustomed  to  studying  utensils  used  in  transportation  will 
recognise  in  these  two  frames  African  forms.  They  are  not 
basketwork,  either  of  them,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
since  the  webbing  which  fills  up  the  hoops  is  true  network  of 
string;  the  crossings  form  regular  knots.  In  both  examples 
the  head  band  is  of  bast  or  the  inner  bark  of  a  tree,  and  in 
the  larger  the  binding  of  the  bottom  is  in  the  same  material. 

Plate  241,  fig.  i,  is  a  carrying  basket  (kodrabo)  of  the 
Bororo'  Indians,  on  the  Rio  Sao  Lourenco,  Brazil,  in  the  col- 
lection of  Dr.  von  den  Steinen.  It  is  in  palm  leaf,  in  regular 
twilled  weaving  common  throughout  the  world.  The  inter- 
esting portion,  not  to  be  overlooked,  is  the  border,  which  is 
the  midrib  of  the  palm  leaf,  with  the  leaflets  attached.  The 
carrying  band,  or  head  band,  as  in  other  examples,  is  in 
tough  inner  bark  of  a  tree. 

Fig.  2  is  a  carrying  basket  of  the  Kabischi  Indians,  on  the 
upper  Xingu  River,  in  the  collection  of  Hermann  Meyer, 
found  in  an  abandoned  camp.  The  weaving  is  in  twilled  work, 
forming  rhomboidal  patterns  on  the  surface.  The  top  of  the 


49° 


INDIAN   BASKETRY 


basket  is  round,  and  strengthened  with  a  hoop.  The  bottom 
is  square,  held  in  shape  by  sticks,  and  carried  by  means  of  a 
head  band  of  bark. 

Fig.  3  is  a  carrying  basket  of  the  Kaingua  Indians,  on  the 
Rio  Alto  Parana,  collected  by  Rohde  Ambrosetti  in  southern 

Brazil.  It  is  an  elab- 
orate specimen,  built 
on  a  framework,  with 
a  round  hoop  at  the 
top  and  two  oxbow- 
shaped  pieces  of 
wood  crossing  under 
the  bottom  to  give 
shape  to  the  body. 
The  upper  part  •  of 
the  surface  is  in 
wickerwork.  A  band 
around  the  middle 

RP?    ^k^s*'    in  twilled  weaving  is 

ornamented  with 
rhomboidal  patterns, 
and  the  lower  part  is 
also  covered  with 
wickerwork.  The 
head  band  is  in  tough 
bark. 

Fig.  4  is  a  carry- 
ing  basket    (apoi) 

made  by  the  Warrau  Indians,  on  the  Rio  Orinoco-Cuyuni 
in  Guiana.  The  framework  and  covering  are  interesting  on 
account  of  the  distribution  of  this  peculiar  form,  which  may 
be  found  as  far  north  as  Guatemala  and  around  the  Caribbean 
Sea.  The  work  is  in  twilled  weaving,  and  the  border  is  formed 
by  strips  of  wood  sewed  to  the  upper  edge.  The  head  band  is 
in  two-strand  rope. 


FIG.  204. 

CARRYING  NET. 
Araucanian   Indians. 


Plate  240.     See  page  488 

DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  CARRYING  BASKETS 
OF  BRAZILIAN  TRIBES 

Photograph  from  Carl  von  den  Steinen,  Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnography 


i     a 
3 

4     5 


Plate  241.     See  page  4  89 

DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  CARRYING  BASKETS 
OF  BRAZILIAN  TRIBES 

Photograph  from  Carl  von  den  Steinen,  Berlin  Museum  of  Ethnography 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


491 


Nieuhoff  describes  the  Brazilian  basketry  of  his  day.* 

The  baskets  of  the  Indians  of  southern  Brazil  are  made 
of  palm-tree  leaves.  They  call  them  patigua.  They  have  also 
some  made  of  reed  or  of  cane.  These  are  with  one  general 
name  called  karamemoa.  They  make  also  large  broad  bas- 
kets of  reeds  and  branches  twisted  together.  These  they  call 
panaku,  and  are  chiefly  used  for  the  carrying  of  the  mandioka 
root.  In  their  journeys 
they  always  make  use  of 
the  patigua,  but  the  panaku 
is  used  by  the  slaves  and 
negroes  in  the  Receif  for 
the  convenience  of  carriage. 

The  Guatos  Indians  in 
southern  Brazil  employ 
twined  weaving  in  the 
manufacture  of  mantles, 
and  the  Cadricios  Indians 
on  the  Paragua  River  make 
grass  bags  in  the  same 
technic. 

The  figure  of  an 
Araucanian  woman 
acting  as  both  freight 
and  passenger  carrier  is  introduced  from  De  Schryverf  to 
show  the  extension  of  the  button-hole  stitch  technic  south- 
ward. The  insertion  of  a  foundation  in  coiled  work  is  not 
common  farther  north,  but  will  be  again  noted  at  the  very 
extremity  of  the  continent.  (See  fig.  204.)  The  basketry 
of  South  America  reaches  its  southern  limit  in  the  Fuegian 
coiled  ware  with  slight  foundation  and  sewing  in  button-hole 
stitches,  illustrated  in  Fig.  59. 

Coming  over  to  the  western   side  of  the  continent,  fig. 


PIG.  205. 

CARRYING  NET. 
Chiriqui,  Columbia. 


*  Voyages  in  Brazil,  in  Churchill,  II,  p.  132. 

t  Simon  de  Schryver,  Royaume  d'Araucanie-Patagonie,  1887. 


492  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

205  is  a  coiled  carrying  bag  from  Chiriqui,  Colombia,  and  is 
a  type  of  an  enormous  amount  of  ware  to  be  found  in  Middle 
America,  North  America,  and  South  America.  It  is  repre- 
sented in  fig.  42,  and  is  called  in  this  monograph  coiled  work 
without  foundation.  It  will  be  seen,  by  looking  at  the  detail, 
that  the  twine  constituting  the  fabric  interlocks  with  the 
stitch  underneath  and  makes  a  complete  revolution,  catching 
the  next  stitch,  and  so  on.  Without  definite  information  on 

the  subject,  it  is  believed  that 
in  making  these  bags  some 
sort  of  a  gauge  is  used  by  the 
weaver — a  small  stick,  which 
may  be  slipped  along  as  the 
work  proceeds. 

The  detail  is  shown  in  fig. 
206,  and  especial  attention  is 

DETAIL  oF°6F,a.  205.  called  to  the  °m*fflMjntal  effect 

of  using  a  two-ply  twine  and 

the  additional  decorative  feature  of  having  the  twines  in 
different  colours. 

The  fibers  of  the  Middle  Americans  and  Mexicans  are  of 
the  best  kind  and  texture,  and  are  used  in  hammocks  and 
for  the  most  exacting  labour  in  transportation. 

An  interesting  example  of  the  friendly  cooperation  between 
the  best  material  and  the  best  workmen  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Republic  of  Ecuador  in  the  manufacture  of  the  so-called 
Panama  hat.  In  August,  1900,  Consul  Perry  M.  de  Leon, 
of  Guyaquil,  gave  the  following  account  of  it:  The  Manavi 
(Panama)  hat  was  first  made  in  the  province  of  Manavi, 
Ecuador,  about  275  years  ago,  by  a  native  named  Francisco 
Delgado.  The  present  centers  of  the  industry  are  Monte 
Crist i  and  Jipijapi  in  the  province  of  Manavi,  and  Santa  Elena 
and  Cuenca  in  the  provinces  of  Guayas  and  Azuay,  respec- 
tively. They  came  to  be  known  as  Panama  hats  years  ago, 
when  that  city  was  a  distributing  center.  Those  who  are 


Plate  242.     See  page  493 

ECUADOR.  OR  PANAMA.  HAT  OF  PALM  LEAF  IN  CHECKER  WEAVING 

Collection  of  S.  O.  Richey 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OP   BASKETRY  493 

familiar  with  them  can  tell  by  the  method  of  beginning 
the.  weaving  at  the  center  of  the  crown  the  locality  where  the 
work  is  done.  In  Ecuador,  Colombia,  and  Central  America 
the  hat  is  known  to  the  natives  as  the  Jipijapi  (pronounced 
hipi-hapi),  but  as  they  are  made  elsewhere  in  Ecuador,  prin- 
cipally in  the  province  of  Manavi,  and  as  the  name  is  easy  to 
pronounce,  it  might  take  the  place  of  the  present  misleading 
appellation.  (See  Plate  242.) 

They  are  made  from  a  native  species  of  palm  (Carludovica 
palmata),  cultivated  in  the  provinces  of  Manavi  and  Guayas, 
and  known  as  "paja  toquilla."  In  appearance  it  resembles 
very  much  the  saw  palmetto,  and  is  fan-like  in  shape.  Low- 
lying  wet  land  is  selected  and  the  seed  planted  in  rows  during 
the  rainy  season.  When  the  plant  attains  a  height  of  4$  or  5 
feet  it  is  cut  just  before  ripening.  The  leaves  are  boiled  in 
hot  water,  and  after  being  thoroughly  sun-dried  are  assorted 
and  ready  for  use. 

The  material  is  first  carefully  selected,  dampened  to  make 
it  pliable,  then  very  finely  divided  into  requisite  widths,  the 
little  finger  and  thumb  nail  being  used  for  the  purpose.  The 
very  finest  specimens  are  prepared  from  delicate  leaves  that 
need  no  splitting  or  stiffening.  The  plaiting  begins  at  the 
apex  of  the  crown,  and  is  continued  in  circular  form  until  the 
hat  is  finished.  The  story  that  they  are  made  under  water 
by  candle  light  is  untrue.  The  work  is  carried  on  while  the 
atmosphere  is  humid,  from  about  midnight  to  seven  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  At  night  the  hat  is  hung  out  in  the  open  air 
so  that  the  dew  may  fall  upon  it,  and  it  is  then  in  condition  to 
be  worked  the  next  day.  If  the  strand  breaks,  it  can  be  re- 
placed and  so  plaited  as  not  to  affect  the  work  nor  be  visible 
to  the  naked  eye.  The  ingenious  woman  uses  her  knee  for  a 
head-block.  It  requires  from  three  to  five  months  daily  labour 
of  three  hours  a  day  to  make  one  of  the  finest  hats.  The  busi- 
ness in  its  highest  development  is  really  an  art,  requiring 
patience,  fine  sight,  and  special  skill — qualifications  few  of 


494 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


the  natives  possess.  The  plaiting  completed,  the  hat  is  washed 
in  clean,  cold  water,  coated  with  a  thin  solution  of  gum,  and 
polished  with  dry  powdered  sulphur.  They  are  so  pliable  that 
they  can  be  rolled  up  without  injury  and  put  in  one's  pocket. 
They  will  last  for  years,  and  can  be  repeatedly  cleaned. 

Natives  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages  are  engaged  at  odd 
times,  the  business  being  a  side  issue.  Children  make  from 
raw,  undressed  straw  about  two  of  the  common  hats  a  day. 

The  specimen  here  shown  is  in  the  collection  of  Dr.  S.  O. 
Richey,  of  Washington  City,  and  has  twenty  or  more  crossings 
to  the  linear  inch.  The  hats  vary  from  the  ordinary  form 
having  eighteen  crossings  or  checks  to  the  finest  quality, 
which  have  twice  as  many.  In  the  market  they  are  sold  at 
from  $10  to  $150.  The  most  costly  specimens  are  those  in 
which  there  is  not  a  break  in  the  straw,  mismatched  colour, 
or  a  knot  showing  in  the  work. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  the  cemeteries  of  Peru 
yielded  the  greatest  abundance  of  relics  and  remains.  Among 
the  former  were  a  mixed  variety  of  textiles,  which  were  types 
of  basketry  hereafter  to  be  described.  The  climate  of  Peru 
is  arid,  and  the  land  almost  a  desert  like  that  of  Arizona  or 
Egypt.  The  frail  products  of  the  textile  industry  that  might 
have  perished  utterly  in  North  America  almost  everywhere 
have  here  all  been  preserved.  Fine  specimens  of  old  Peruvian 
work  are  to  be  seen  in  all  the  leading  museums  of  the  world. 
The  Field  Columbian  Museum,  in  Chicago,  is  especially  rich 
in  productions  of  this  kind,  gathered  through  the  agency  of 
the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  in  1893. 

In  the  Peabody  Museum  and  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum  also  are  fine  old  collections  brought  home  fifty  years 
ago  by  earlier  travellers  and  explorers  in  South  America,  and 
in  this  Peruvian  basketware  are  to  be  seen  not  only  great  vari- 
eties in  form  and  exhaustive  treatment  of  native  technical 
processes,  but  adaptations  to  uses  without  number,  extending 
literally  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 


ETHNIC   VARIETIES    OF   BASKETRY  495 

The  name  Peru  has  for  the  ethnologist  a  long  perspective  in 
time,  reaching  through  many  centuries ;  in  elevation  it  covers 
the  range  of  habitable  areas  from  reeking  sea -coasts  to  heights 
barely  endurable  by  man.  In  coast  line  it  stretches  through 
fifteen  degrees  of  south  latitude  (5°  to  20°).  Only  in  width 
is  it  restricted  to  the  narrow  watershed  of  the  Andes  and  a 
slight  portion  of  the  incline  on  the  eastern  side,  reaching  down 
to  the  forest  line.  The  most  celebrated  of  the  explorations 
in  this  area  have  been  by  Reiss,  Stiibel,  and  Kappel.* 

The  authors  figure  the  following-named  types  of  basketry : 

1.  Checkerwork:     In  this  connection  should  be  noted  a 
kind  of  openwork  in  which  the  warps  are  set  at  an  angle  of 
45    degrees,    running   in   two   directions,    forming   diamond- 
shaped  spaces.     A  weft  passes  around  among  these  warps  so  as 
to  divide  the  diamond-shaped  spaces  into  triangles.     Such 
weaving  is  seen  in  many  specimens  of  the  North  Pacific  area; 
even  the  Aleutian  Islanders  practise  it.     It  has  been  already 
described  and   figured  in  von  den  Steinen's  plates  for  the 
eastern  area. 

2.  Wickerwork,  in  Colombia  and  Uruguay. 

3.  Diagonal  or  twilled  work,  widely  diffused. 

4.  Twined  work    has    been    recovered   from  prehistoric 
graves  at  Ancon,  Peru,  in  matting,  both  coarse  and  fine,  and 
on  baskets;  from  prehistoric  graves  at  Arica,  Chile,  in  the 
structure  of  small  wallets  of  basketry;  and  from  graves  at 
Pisagua,  Chile,  in  baskets.     On  other  styles  of  manufacture  a 
row  or  two  intrude  themselves. 

5 .  Coiled  work  without  foundation  is  universally  distributed. 
With  foundation  of  fine  splints  it  occurs  also,  as  will  be  seen.f 

In  the  plates  of  these  authors  the  following-named  technical 
processes  will  be  seen : 

Plate  8,  fig.  i,  wickerwork  basket  from  Bogota,  Colombia. 

*  Kultur  und  Industrie  Sudamerikanischer  Volker,  Berlin,  1889. 
t  Compare  Nos.  13,039  and  13,096  in  Eleventh  Annual  Report  of  the 
Peabody  Museum,  p.  280,  fig.  3;  p.  292,  fig.  18. 


496  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

Fig.  2,  crossed  warp,  open  weaving,  from  Pasto,  Colombia. 

Fig.  3,  diagonal  weaving  from  Pasto,  Colombia. 

Fig.  4,  twilled  weaving  from  Panama. 

Fig.  5,  wicker  from  Andaqui,  Colombia. 

Figs.  6  and  7,  diagonal  weaving  from  Otavalio,  Colombia. 

Fig.  8,  twilled  weaving  from  Bogota,  Colombia. 

Fig.  9,  coiled  basketry  from  Copacabana,  Bolivia. 

Fig.  10,  diagonal  weaving  from  Quito,  Ecuador. 

Figs.  1 1  and  12,  twilled  weaving  from  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Brazil. 

Fig.  13,  coarse,  diagonal  weaving  from  Guallabamba, 
Ecuador. 

Fig.  14,  open  coiled  basket  box  from  Bogota,  Colombia. 

Fig.  15,  plaited  fans  from  Cocamilla  Indians,  Peru. 

Fig.  1 6,  diagonal  weaving,  fan,  Papayan,  Colombia. 

Fig.  17,  checker,  oblique  weaving,  from  Cocamilla  Indians, 
Peru. 

Fig.  1 8,  wicker  strainer  for  mate,  from  Cerro  Largo, 
Uruguay. 

Fig.  19,  diagonal  weaving,  tray,  from  Brazil. 

Figs.  207  to  211  are  twilled  basketry,  found  deposited 
with  the  dead  in  a  cemetery  at  Ancon,  Peru.  They  are  made 
of  rushes,  and  exhibit  a  great  variety  of  forms,  as  may  be  seen 
by  examining  the  drawings  on  the  cover  of  fig.  207.  Across 
the  middle  are  two  rows  of  ordinary  over-two  twilled  weaving, 
seen  also  in  detail  in  fig.  208.  A  noticeable  feature  on  other 
specimens,  however,  to  which  attention  is  drawn  by  Holmes,* 
and  to  which  he  gives  the  name  diagonal  combination,  is  the 
production  of  triangular  figures.  The  weaver,  in  going  from 
right  to  left,  produces  the  effect  of  right-angle  triangles,  but 
in  returning  so  regulates  the  decussations  of  the  fibers  as  to 
give  to  the  pairs  of  triangles  of  the  two  rows  a  common  hy- 
pothenuse.  The  effect  of  this  combination  is  magical,  leaving 
the  impression  of  high  relief.  (Fig.  209.) 

*  W.  H.  Holmes,  A  Study  in  the  Textile  Art,  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  p.  206,  figs.  297-299. 


Plate  243 .     See  page  49  7 

ANCIENT  WORK-BASKET  OF  PERUVIAN  SPINNER  IN  FINE  WOOL 
Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


Plate  244.     See  page  497 

PERUVIAN  ANCIENT  CARRYING  FRAME 

In  wrapped  and  twined  weaving,  from  a  grave  in  Iquique 
Field  Columbian  Museum 


•   g«^ 

; 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


497 


But  the  most  charming  effects  in  these  Peruvian  work- 
baskets  are  brought  about  by  the  use  of  narrow  strips  of 
wood,  over  which  the  plaiting  takes  place  and  by  which 
broad  bands  of  twilled  work  are  produced.  This  result  is 
manifest  in  figs.  210  and  211. 

Another  characteristic  of  this  Peruvian  work  is  the  hinging 
of  the  cover  of  the  basket  as  part  of  the  weaving.  In  Plate 
243,  evidently  the  work-basket  of  an  ancient  spinner  in  Vicuna 


FIG.  207. 

ANCIENT  PERUVIAN  WORK-BASKET. 
After  W  H.  Holmes. 


wool,  there  is  a  single  cover,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  the  modern 
compartment  trunk  has  been  anticipated,  the  basket  being 
in  three  divisions,  the  middle  one  forming  the  cover  of  the 
lower  one.  The  detail  of  the  hinge  as  a  part  of  the  texture 
may  be  seen  in  the  small  drawings  at  the  bottom  of  the  plate. 
Plate  244  is  a  twined  carrying  frame,  from  the  graves  of 
Iquique,  southern  Peru.  The  framework  consists  of  three 
sticks,  bent  in  the  shape  of  an  oxbow,  crossing  each  other  at 
the  bottom  so  as  to  give  to  the  top  the  form  of  an  oblique 
hexagon.  The  ends  are  held  in  place  by  a  stout  cord  of  hair, 
in  natural  brown  colour.  The  warp  of  this  basket  is  formed 
by  winding  a  white  string  round  and  round  these  sticks  on  the 


498 


INDIAN    BASKETRY 


outside,  the  turns  about  one-eighth  of  an  inch  apart,  from  the 
bottom  to  the  top.  The  weft  is  a  series  of  vertical  rows  of 
twined  weaving,  in  some  places  close  together,  and  in  others 


FIG.  208. 

DETAIL  OF  FIG.  307. 
AfterW.H.  Holmes. 


FIG.  209. 

DETAIL  OF  A  PERUVIAN  BASKET. 
AfterW.H.  Holmes. 


wide  apart,  for  ornamental  effect.  The  vertical  stripes  seen 
on  the  surface  are  in  green,  red,  black,  and  white  twine,  each 
block  including  two  or  more  warp  strands.  By  using  two 
colours  in  the  twine  the  patterns  are  variegated  on  the  surface, 

first  the  white  and  then  the  coloured  strand 

coming  in- 

t  o   view. 

Bycompar- 


FIG.  210. 

DETAIL  OF  A   PERU- 
VIAN BASKET. 


FIG.  211. 
DETAIL   OF  A  PERUVIAN  BASKET. 


ing  these 

s  p  e  cimens 

with  the 

one    from 

the  Arikara 

I  ndians, 

fig.  125,  it  will  be  seen  that,  in  the  latter,  two  of  the  bows 
projected  downward  and  formed  the  bottom,  on  which 
the  basket  rests.  But  in  this  case  no  such  protection  is 
afforded.  The  woman  has  sewed  a  coarse  piece  of  woven 
stuff  along  the  bottom  as  a  protection  for  the  more  delicate 
threads.  The  specimen  is  in  the  Field  Columbian  Museum, 
Chicago,  and  the  coloured  plate  was  furnished  by  Doctor 
George  A.  Dorsey. 


ETHNIC    VARIETIES    OF    BASKETRY 


499 


Fig.  212  is  a  fragment  of  a  coiled  basket  from  a  copper 
mine  in  the  district  of  Chuquicamata,  in  the  desert  of  Atacama, 
Chile.  It  was  found,  together  with  other  industrial  imple- 
ments, associated  with  the  body  of  a  woman,  who  undoubtedly 
met  her  death  on  the  spot.  From  the  dislocated  backbone 
and  the  small  stones  embedded  in  the  skin  it  is  supposed  that 
she  was  buried  by  a  caving  in  of  the  works.  The  basket,  of 
which  this  is  a  fragment,  was  in  every  respect  similar  to  the 


FIG.  212. 
ANCIENT  COILED  BASKET  FROM  CHILE. 


Pima  ware  in  southern  Arizona.  This  fragment  bears  such 
remarkable  similarity  to  Pima  workmanship  that  J.  W. 
Benham,  of  Arizona,  who  is  most  familiar  with  it,  was  struck 
with  the  Chilean  example,  and  wondered  whether  it  were 
possible  that  the  Pima  Indians  and  the  maker  of  this  specimen 
could  have  been  under  the  same  instructors. 

Plates  245  to  247  are  also  specimens  of  coiled  work,  exhibited 
at  the  Pan-American  Exposition,  with  the  mummy  from 
Chile ;  the  foundation  of  the  coil  of  shredded  material  and  the 
sewing  also  in  soft  splints.  The  stitches  pass  over  the  founda- 
tion, and  are  not  only  interlocking,  but  take  up  a  portion  of 
the  foundation  in  its  base  below.  These  should  be  compared 
with  the  specimens  from  northern  Mexico,  in  the  Peabody 
Museum,  described  by  C.  C.  Willoughby. 


500  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

Plate  248  is  the  side  and  bottom  view  of  a  coiled  basket 
from  Peru.  The  style  is  entirely  modern,  but  it  is  introduced 
here  to  show  two  features  in  technic,  well  wrought  out  in  the 
northern  continent.  The  foundation  and  the  sewing  are  both 
in  a  brilliant-coloured  straw,  species  unknown.  Sewing  is 
reduced  to  the  minimum,  most  of  the  foundation  being  neatly 
wrapped,  or  served  with  the  sewing-material.  The  stitches 
on  the  body  are  bifurcated  most  neatly,  and,  coming  one  above 
the  other,  give  the  impression  of  herring-bone  work  done 
vertically.  Finding  this  openwork  coil  and  furcate  stitches  in 
Eskimo  land,  California,  and  Peru,  would  tempt  one  to  see 
the  same  invention  arising  independently  in  regions  wide 
apart;  but,  omitting  the  unlimited  going  about  in  pre- 
Columbian  times,  during  hundreds  of  years  the  sovereigns  of 
Spain,  France,  England,  and  for  a  century  Russia,  mixed 
the  native  tribes  and  their  industries.  Catalogue  No.  150,844, 
United  States  National  Museum. 

The  two  areas  of  South  America,  eastern  and  western, 
unite  in  the  Strait  of  Magellan.  There  are  three  linguistic 
families  of  Indians,  among  whom  two  types  of  basketry  are 
found  belonging  to  the  coiled  variety.  They  are  made  by 
women  of  Juncus  magellanicus.  Descriptions  and  figures 
of  the  stitches  involved  will  be  found  in  the  Revue  d' Ethno- 
graphic.* See  also  Lovisto.f  The  rim  is  made  of  wood,  veya 
or  tshelia.  The  specimens  in  the  United  States  National 
Museum  are  all  of  one  variety,  the  sewing  being  in  the 
button-hole  stitch,  so  called,  and  in  openwork.  Nothing  of 
the  kind  exists  in  the  neighbourhood,  so  that  it  is  within  the 
limits  of  possibility  that  the  style  of  technic  was  introduced. 

In  summing  up  what  has  been  said  on  basketry  in  the 
Western  Hemisphere,  it  would  seem  that  nearly  all  the  types 
and  processes  known  throughout  the  world  are  to  be  seen 
here. 

*  Paris,  IV,  p.  517. 

t  Guida  Cora's  Cosmos,  October,  1884,  pi.  v. 


••••  "•'»'•: '4  ••     "•*•&•.•' 
^^^  '• 

y-  /> 


Plate  245.      See  page  490 

FRAGMENT  OF  ANCIENT  COILED  BASKET,  FOUND  IN  COPPER  MINE, 

CHILE 

Exhibited  in  Buffalo  Exposition 


CHAPTER   VIII 
COLLECTORS  AND  COLLECTIONS 

As  David  and  the  Sibyl  say. — THOMAS  OF  CELANO 

BASKETRY  and  pottery  are  the  sibylline  leaves  on  which 
are  written  the  thoughts  and  lore  of  our  Indians.  Already 
much  has  gone  beyond  recovery;  it  is  for  this  reason  that  a 
good  word  is  here  spoken  for  those  lovers  of  art  who  have 
spent  time  and  means  in  redeeming  the  more  perishable  of 
the  two  treasures  from  destruction.  Pottery  may  be  broken, 
but  its  fragments  endure  and  bear  witness.  Not  so  basketry ; 
made  of  the  most  perishable  portions  of  plants,  it  can  endure 
only  when  in  contact  with  preservative  materials,  or  partly 
reduced  to  ashes,  or  deposited  in  caves  and  other  dry  places ; 
or  finally,  their  technic,  but  not  their  story,  may  be  saved  by 
impressions  left  on  pottery. 

The  following  instructions  are  published  for  the  great 
number  of  persons  who  are  interested  in  the  collection  and 
preservation  of  American  basketry.  Besides  the  esthetic 
elements  involved  and  the  pride  of  saving  the  best  examples 
of  a  rapidly  vanishing  industry,  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  culture 
study  which  ought  not  to  be  neglected. 

In  every  collection,  public  or  private,  there  are  opportunities 
for  special  investigation  that  should  not  be  in  the  possession 
of  a  single  individual  only.  If  all  who  are  gathering  baskets 
would  preserve  such  information  as  they  may  be  able  to  obtain, 
the  bringing  together  of  the  results  of  all  this  study  would  be  a 
monument  for  our  American  aboriginal  women. 

As  pointed  out  in  former  chapters,  knowledge  concerning 
basketry  seems  to  be  illimitable,  the  technician,  the  artist, 


502  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

and  the  student  of  folk-lore  finding  equal  pleasure  in  the 
acquisition.  To  begin  with  the  manufacture,  a  correct 
knowledge  of  the  materials  includes  the  name  of  the  tribe 
and  their  location,  the  name  of  the  different  kinds  of  weaving 
in  the  native  tongue,  and  chiefly  the  native  name,  the  common 
name,  and  the  scientific  name  of  every  plant  or  animal  sub- 
stance or  mineral  involved.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  in 
order  to  know  whether  an  art  is  indigenous  or  acquired,  it  is 
necessary  to  compare  the  names  for  definite  things  with  those 
used  by  other  tribes  for  the  same  things.  Not  to  discourage 
the  collector,  however,  it  must  be  said  that  this  is  merely  an 
ideal  toward  which  we  ought  to  work. 

The  following  label  of  a  specimen  in  the  Hudson  basketry 
collection,  United  States  National  Museum,  will  serve  as  a 
model  to  guide  the  collector  in  saving  information  about  his 
specimens : 


BASKET  JAR  of  the  Porno  Indians  (Kulanapan  family).  Made  from  the  prepared  root 
of  Kahum,  or  California  sedge  (Carex  barbarae),  throat  and  scalp  feathers  of  Katitch,  or 
woodpecker  (Melanerpes  formicivorus) ,  breast  feathers  of  Jucil,  or  meadow  lark  (Stur-nella 
neglecta),  scalp  feathers  of  Kayan,  or  mallard  (Anas  borchas),  plumes  of  Tchikika,  or 
crested  quail  (Lophortyx  calif  orntcus),  neck  feathers  of  Tsawalu,  or  jay  (Cyanttra  stelleri), 
and  K4ya,  or  prepared  clam-shell  (Saxidomus  gracilis),  in  a  style  of  coiled  sewing  called 
Tsai,  in  which  a  single  rod  constitutes  the  basis.  The  sewing  passes  over  this  rod,  under 
the  preceding  one,  and  locks  in  the  stitch  immediately  underneath.  Ornamentation,  a 
row  of  shell  disks  around  the  margin  and  another  row  serving  as  a  handle. 

Diameter,  5  inches. 
RUSSIAN  RIVER,  CALIFORNIA.  1896.  No.  203,415. 

FROM  THE  BUREAU  OF  AMERICAN  ETHNOLOGY,  COLLECTED  BY 
DR.  J.  W.  HUDSON. 


For  the  artistic  collector,  there  is  a  very  important  mission, 
to  know  and  to  foster  the  aboriginal  patterns  and  motives  in 
decoration.  Many  of  the  shapes  and  designs  in  basketry  are 
spurious.  Besides  the  trashy  imitations  of  letters  and  common 
things  on  basketry,  which  mislead  no  one,  there  is  an  unfortu- 
nate habit  springing  up  of  getting  women  of  one  tribe  to  imi- 
tate the  designs  of  another  tribe.  This  works  confusion  in  two 
ways.  It  confounds  the  student  of  folk-lore  absolutely,  and, 
if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  belief  that  in  all  art  the  material 


Plate  246.    See  page  499 

ANCIENT  COILED  BASKET  FROM  COPPER  MINE  IN  CHILE 

Exhibited  in  Buffalo  Exposition 


COLLECTORS    AND    COLLECTIONS  503 

and  the  motive  have  in  the  ages  adapted  themselves  to  each 
other  "like  perfect  music  unto  perfect  words,"  the  attempt 
to  put  Apache  ornaments  on  Pima  or  Wasco  on  Klikitat  is 
discordant. 

PRESERVATION  OF  BASKETS 

The  art  of  a  people  must  be  judged  by  what  they  need  not 
do  and  yet  accomplish. — A.  C.  HADDON. 

Textiles  are  among  the  most  fragile  and  perishable  of 
human  industrial  products.  Insects  and  rust,  heat  and  cold, 
too  much  and  too  little  moisture,  the  common  accidents  of 
life,  are  hastening  our  pretty  baskets  to  their  dissolution. 
Therefore,  how  to  prolong  the  life  of  a  basket  is  a  living 
question  with  all  basket  lovers,  and  the  answer  will  be  easier 
if  the  causes  of  destruction  are  known.  The  three  enemies 
of  baskets  are  moth  and  rust  and  human  fingers.  By  the 
moth  are  meant  all  destructive  animals;  by  rust,  natural 
decay;  and  in  the  last  agency  must  be  classed  the  myriad 
ways  by  which  our  fellow-creatures  purloin  and  destroy  our 
treasures.  E.  S.  Morse  tells  us  that  the  Japanese  do  not 
make  of  their  houses  bazaars  for  the  ostentatious  display  of 
art  objects,  but  they  put  them  away  in  silk  bags,  to  bring 
forth  when  they  wish  to  delight  their  friends.  Those  collec- 
tions that  have  been  made  with  a  view  to  permanence  should 
be  kept  so  that  they  will  suffer  least  from  damage.  The  dust 
may  be  blown  from  the  specimens  with  bellows.  Those 
containing  remnants  of  vegetable  matter,  berries,  food,  etc., 
should  be  carefully  scrubbed  with  soap  and  water,  and  rubbed 
down  with  a  very  small  portion  of  oil  and  dryer.  Above  all, 
they  should  be  poisoned  with  a  weak  solution  of  corrosive 
sublimate  or  arsenic  dissolved  in  alcohol.  A  card  catalogue 
giving  the  legend  and  history  of  each  piece  would  add  much 
to  the  value  of  the  collection. 

A  list  of  collections  of  rarities  in  American  basketry  is  here 
appended,  by  no  means  complete,  but  it  will  aid  the  student 


504  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

who  wishes  to  prosecute  his  investigations  further  to  find  the 
material.  First  of  all,  in  the  great  museums  there  are  perma- 
nently in  store  priceless  examples  of  basketry,  and  in  addition 
many  costly  collections  belonging  to  private  individuals  have 
thus  rendered  a  great  service  to  this  writer.  It  is  interesting 
to  read  over  the  names  of  the  men  and  women  who  long  ago 
contributed  to  the  great  museums  precious  examples  of 
uncontaminated  Indian  art. 

AMERICAN  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  NEW  YORK.  The 
best  assemblages  of  American  basketry  are  the  Emmons  col- 
lection from  Alaska;  the  Teit  from  the  Chilcotin  and  the 
Thompson  Indians  (Jesup  expedition);  the  Farrand  from 
the  Quinaielt  (Jesup  expedition) ;  the  Farrand  from  the  Kliki- 
tat  and  Oregon  (gift  of  Mr.  Henry  Villard);  the  Dixon  from 
northern  California  (Huntingdon  expedition) ;  the  Briggs  col- 
lection from  California  (gift  of  Mr.  George  Foster  Peabody) ; 
the  Apache  collection  (gift  of  Mr.  Andrew  E.  Douglass);  the 
Pepper,  of  ceremonial  baskets  of  the  ancient  cliff-dwellers 
(Hyde  Expedition) ;  baskets  from  the  Chukchi  Peninsula  col- 
lected by  Messrs.  Jochelson  and  Bogoras  (Jesup  expedition). 

If  we  should  include  birch-bark  baskets,  one  might  also  mention 
the  Stone  collection  from  Mackenzie  Basin;  and  the  Berthold 
Laufer  collection  from  the  Amur  River  (Jesup  expedition). 
The  basketry  collection  has  been  brought  together  for  decora- 
tion, not  for  technic. 

ANKENY,  Mrs.  LEVI,  Walla  Walla,  Washington.     Salish  basketry. 

BARRETT,  S.  A.,  Ukiah,  California.     All  Porno.  About  150  pieces. 

BENHAM,  J.  W.,  Phcenix,  Arizona.  Large  and  rich  collection  of 
Apache  ollas,  rare  Pimas,  and  other  basketry  from  the  South- 
west. 

BENJAMIN,  Mrs.  CAROLYN  G.,  Washington  City.  General  collec- 
tion. Good  in  Chetimachas. 

BINGHAM,  Mrs.  J.  E.,  338  Katharine  street,  Walla  Walla,  Wash- 
ington. 

BISHOP,  Mrs.  THOMAS  T.,  2309  Washington  Street,  San  Francisco, 
California.  Miscellaneous. 

BOGGS,  Mrs.  A.  G.,  Redding,  California.  Principally  Hat  Creeks, 
of  Shasta  County,  and  Pit  Rivers,  of  Modoc  County.  Some 
200. 


•Hi      I 


Plate  247.     See  page  499 

ANCIENT  COILED  BASKETS  FROM  COPPER  MINE  IN  CHILE 
Exhibited  in  Buffalo  Exposition 


Plate  248.     See  page  500 

MODERN  COILED  BASKET  IN  OPENWORK,  PERU 

Collections  of  U.  S.  National  Museum 


COLLECTORS    AND   COLLECTIONS  505 

BRADFORD,  Mrs.  SIDNEY,  Avery  Island,  Louisiana.  Fine  old 
Chetimachas. 

BRIGGS,  C.  F.,  San  Francisco,  California.  Miscellaneous.  Very 
choice  examples.  Northwest  coast,  Pomos,  Mariposan,  and 
few  fine  Mission. 

BRITTIN,  L.  H.,  Edgewater,  New  Jersey.     Old  Tlinkit  baskets. 

BRIZARD,  BROUSSE,  Arcata,  California.  Large  Hupa  material 
with  illustrated  catalogue. 

BUCHANAN,  CHARLES  MILTON,  Tulalip  Agency,  Tulalip,  Washing- 
ton. Good  Salish  collection. 

BUGBEE,    Mrs.    SUMNER  W.,  Pasadena,  California,  Miscellaneous. 

BURDICK,  J.  W.,  Albany,  New  York.     Rare  Tulares. 

BURGESS,  JOHN  D.,  Tucson,  Arizona.  Pima,  Maricopa,  and  Apache 
examples. 

CARPENTER,  Mrs.  HELEN  M.,  Ukiah,  California.     Pomos. 

CARROLL,  ANDREW  W.,  DE  LA  CCEUR,  Ardglass,  Ireland.  Good 
California  types. 

CHICAGO  UNIVERSITY.     Especially  Mexican.     See  Frederick  Starr. 

CINCINNATI  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ART.     General  collection. 

COHN,  A.,  charming  specimens  of  Washoe  baskets,  Nevada. 

COLE,  Mrs.,  Pasadena,  California.     General  collection. 

COOK,  Mrs.  J.  B.,  Yosemite  Valley,  California.  About  seventy- 
five  examples  of  Mono,  Washoe,  and  Mariposan  tribes. 

COVERT,  FRANK  M.,  New  York.     Good  in  Arizona  basketry. 

COVILLE,  FREDERICK  V.  Fine  collection  from  the  west  coast  to 
illustrate  the  plants  used. 

CROSS,  Mrs.  EDWARD,  Salem,  Oregon. 

CURTIS,  WILLIAM  CONWAY,  Norwalk,  Connecticut.  The  Klikitat 
and  other  basketry  of  Washington. 

DAGGETT,  JOHN,  Black  Bear,  Siskiyou  County,  California.  Fine 
collection  of  Yurok  and  Karok  material.  Klamath  and  Sal- 
mon rivers,  northern  California.  At  present  on  deposit  in 
the  Memorial  Museum,  Golden  Gate  Park,  San  Francisco, 
California. 

DAVENPORT  ACADEMY  MUSEUM,  Iowa.     Miscellaneous  collection. 

DEISHER,  H.  K.,  50  Noble  Street,  Kutztown,  Pennsylvania.  Pomos 
and  Wintuns,  and  a  few  good  Maidus. 

DESSEZ,  Miss  HENRIETTA  LOUISE,  Washington  City.  California 
and  Interior  Basin. 

EATON,  the  Misses,  Boston,  Massachusetts.  Very  precious  old 
California  baskets. 


506  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

EMMONS,  G.  T.,  Princeton,  New  Jersey.     Excellent  old  Tlinkits. 

ERICSON,  A.  W.,  Arcata,  California.  Photographs  of  basket- 
makers  and  baskets. 

FEENEY,  Miss  KATHARINE,  1570  Filbert  Street,  Oakland,  California. 
A  fine  miscellaneous  collection. 

FIELD  COLUMBIAN  MUSEUM  OF  CHICAGO  has  rich  collections  of 
basketry  from  all  the  north  Pacific  coast  families,  and  espe- 
cially old  and  beautiful  specimens  of  Tlinkit  twined  ware,  the 
gift  of  Mr.  E.  E.  Ayer;  from  the  Columbian  Basin  fifty  Nez 
Percys  twined  wallets,  many  of  them  large  and  choice,  and 
some  of  considerable  age ;  sixty  coiled  and  imbricated  baskets 
of  the  Klikitats  of  various  sizes.  The  last-mentioned  two 
collections  were  made  by  Mr.  E.  E.  Miller.  From  various  parts 
of  California,  the  Field  Columbian  possesses  many  choice  bas- 
kets, and  is  especially  rich  in  examples  from  tribes  of  the  Kula- 
napan,  Mariposan,  and  Moquelumnan  families.  These  were 
gathered  chiefly  by  Dr.  J.  W.  Hudson,  but  many  choice  exam- 
ples were  the  gift  of  Mr.  E.  E.  Ayer.  The  same  generous  bene- 
factor added  to  his  gift  large  collections  from  the  White  Moun- 
tain and  Mescalero  Apaches;  and  from  the  Pimas,  made  by 
George  A.  Dorsey,  Charles  L.  Owen,  and  S.  C.  Sims,  typical 
series  from  special  tribes.  Dr.  Dorsey 's  Ute  collection  should 
be  mentioned,  and  also  that  from  the  Klamath  tribe,  number- 
ing over  200  specimens  and  comprising  all  their  forms,  techni- 
cal processes,  and  designs. 

FROHMAN,  Mrs.  J.,  Portland,  Oregon.  West  Coast  basketry  and 
matting. 

GARDNER,  Mrs.  GEORGE  S.,  Laurel,  Mississippi.  Tribes  of  Indian 
Territory,  Georgia,  and  Louisiana.  Also  a  fair  series  of  Pacific 
coast  work — Alaska,  British  Columbia,  Washington,  Califor- 
nia, and  Arizona. 

GRAY,  Mrs.  WILLIAM,  Salem,  Oregon. 

GREBLE,  Mrs.  MARY  D.,  Pasadena,  California.  Rare  old  southern 
California  pieces. 

HALL,  ROBERT  C.,  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania.  Miscellaneous.  Good 
Pomos  and  Tulares. 

HAMILTON,  Miss  HENRIETTA,  Seattle,  Washington.  Large  and 
choice  collections  from  Alaska  to  California.  Mostly  in  the 
Fred  Harvey  series. 

HARBAUGH,  Mrs.  H.  W.,  Colton,  California.  Choice  California 
specimens. 


COLLECTORS    AND    COLLECTIONS  507 

HARVEY,  FRED,  Albuquerque,  New  Mexico.  Large  and  rare  col- 
lection from  all  the  West  coast  region. 

HEARST,  Mrs.  PHEBE  A.,  Berkeley,  California.  Miscellaneous. 
Very  large  collection.  Rich  in  Pomos  and  central  California 
tribes.  The  collection  is  in  the  University  of  California,  and 
exhaustive  studies  are  being  made  under  her  generous  pat- 
ronage. 

HUBBY,  Miss  ELLA  F.,  Pasadena,  California.  Excellent  general 
Pacific  coast  collection. 

HUDSON,  Mrs.  GRACE,  Ukiah,  California.  Fine  Pomos.  Dr.  J. 
W.  Hudson's  two  large  collections  from  these  tribes  are  in 
Washington  and  Chicago. 

HYDE  EXPLORING  EXPEDITION,  New  York.  Collection  of  basketry 
from  the  Southwest.  Encourages  the  making  of  baskets  and 
aids  in  the  sale  of  them. 

IDE,  Mrs.  ESTHER  C.,  Seymour  Street,  Syracuse,  New  York.  Mis- 
cellaneous. Good  Pomos  and  Tulares. 

JACKSON,  Col.  JAMES,  Salem,  Oregon. 

JAMES,  GEORGE  WHARTON,  Pasadena,  California.  Especially  good 
in  examples  from  California  Missions. 

JOHNSTON,  Mrs.  WILLIAM  P.,  New  Orleans,  Louisiana.  Cheti- 
maches,  Choctaws,  and  Attakapas. 

JONES,  PHILIP  MILLS,  State  University,  Berkeley,  California. 

KEPLER,  JOSEPH,  Inwood  on  the  Hudson.     General  collection. 

KIRKPATRICK,  Mrs.  I.  H.,  Adrian,  Michigan.     Fine  Navahos. 

LANDSBERG,  FREDERICK,  Victoria,  British  Columbia.  General 
collection. 

LANG,  Miss  ANNE  M.,  The  Dalles,  Oregon.  Collection  of  imbri- 
cated basketry.  Large  and  rare. 

LOOSLY,  Mrs.  JOHN,  9  Pine  Street,  San  Francisco,  California.  Mis- 
cellaneous. 

LOWE,  Mrs.  T.  S.  C.,  Pasadena,  California.  Fine,  large  collection. 
Rich  in  Pomos  and  central  California  tribes. 

LYNCH,  Mrs.  JAY,  Fort  Simcoe,  Washington.  General  collection 
of  west  coast  baskets. 

MABLEY,  Miss  KATE,  Detroit,  Michigan. 

McARTHUR,  Mrs.  H.  K.,  739  Glisan  Street,  Portland,  Oregon.  Col- 
lection from  Washington  and  Oregon. 

MACGREGOR,  JOHN,  Hope  Station,  British  Columbia.  Thompson 
River  basketry. 

McKEE,  Miss  BELLE,  Salem,  Oregon. 


508  INDIAN   BASKETRY 

McLEOD,  E.  L.,  Bakersfield,  California.  Large  collection  of  bas- 
kets of  Kern  and  Inyo  tribes.  A  few  Tulares. 

McNEiL,  Mrs.  W.  H.,  1022  North  Nineteenth  Street,  St.  Joseph, 
Missouri.  Miscellaneous. 

MALLETT,  J.  H.,  Jr.,  San  Francisco,  California.  A  few  fine  Pomos 
and  tribes  in  east-central  California. 

MASTERS,  Mrs.  W.  U.,  Pasadena,  California. 

MASTIC,  GEORGE  H.,  Alameda,  California.  Large  collection  of 
Porno  baskets.  A  few  good  examples  of  Mariposan  and 
Yokuts. 

MERRIAM,  C.  HART,  Washington  City.  About  1,000  examples  of 
Western  basketry,  personally  selected  and  card  catalogued. 
A  model  collection. 

MILLS,  Mrs.  ANSON  G.,  Washington  City.  Select  general  collec- 
tion. 

MITCHELL,  JOHN  S.,  San  Francisco,  California.  Miscellaneous. 
Good  examples  from  Northwest  coast  and  from  Arizona. 

MITCHELL,  SUSMAN,  Visalia,  California.  Excellent  work  of  differ- 
ent tribes  in  Tulare  and  Kern  counties,  California. 

MOLSON,  Mrs.  W.  MARKLAND,  Montreal,  Canada.  Washington 
and  Oregon  basketry. 

MONTGOMERY,  Mrs.  J.  B.,  Portland,  Oregon. 

MOSELEY,  Mrs.  WILLIAM  H.,  New  Haven,  Connecticut.  Collection 
on  exhibition  at  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Yale. 

NATIONAL  MUSEUM. — The  Museum  is  rich  in  collections  of  Ameri- 
can basketry  made  to  show  all  forms  of  technic  and  also  to 
exhibit  handiwork  from  tribes  in  the  six  areas.  Beginning 
at  the  north,  the  collections  of  Ray  from  Point  Barrow ;  of 
McFarlane  and  Ross  at  the  Mackenzie  mouth;  the  rich  treas- 
ures gathered  by  Nelson  in  western  Alaska;  those  of  Dall, 
Turner,  Appelgate,  and  Fisher  farther  south;  and  the  Tlinkit 
ware  selected  by  McLean,  Swan,  and  Emmons  amply  illus- 
trate the  technical  processes  in  that  area. 

Going  southward,  the  Salish  and  other  Fraser-Columbia 
basketry  includes,  among  others,  Wilkes,  Swan,  Eells,  Shackel- 
ford,  Emmons,  and  Willoughby  collections. 

The  largest  collections  from  California  were  made  by  Pur- 
cell,  Ray,  Stone,  Powers,  Hudson,  Henshaw,  Curtin  in  the 
north;  by  Holmes,  Merriam,  Rust,  and  Mead  in  the  south. 

The  collections  of  basketry  from  the  Interior  Basin  are  the 
largest  of  all,  being  gathered  by  Palmer,  Powell,  Gushing, 


COLLECTORS    AND    COLLECTIONS  509 

Stevenson,  Holmes,  Fewkes,  Hough,  Mooney,  and  Russell, 
and  officers  connected  with  the  numerous  surveys.  Much  of 
this  is  very  old.  From  farther  south,  from  Middle  and  South 
America,  the  Museum  is  indebted  to  explorers  and  officers  of 
various  departments  of  the  Government  for  typical  material, 
the  latest  gathered  on  the  Amazon  by  J.  B.  Steere. 

NEWMAN,  Mrs.  H.  W.,  San  Carlos,  Arizona.  White  Mountain 
Apache. 

NICHOLSON,  Miss  GRACE,  Pasadena,  California.  Choice  old  Cali- 
fornian  specimens. 

O'HARA,  Miss,  San  Francisco,  California.  Good  pieces  of  Old 
Missions. 

OWEN,  Mrs.  WILLIAM,  Sepacuite,  Panos,  Alta  Vera  Paz,  Guate- 
mala. Fine  collection  of  Guatemala  work. 

PEABODY  MUSEUM  OF  ARCHEOLOGY  AND  ETHNOLOGY,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  Collections  which 
ought  not  to  be  neglected  by  the  special  student.  Among 
these  should  be  mentioned  that  of  Mrs.  George  B.  Linder,  of 
Boston,  rich  in  California  material;  that  of  Mrs.  Mary  Hem- 
enway,  devoted  especially  to  the  pueblo  tribes  of  Arizona, 
the  Hopi,  being  the  collection  made  by  Thomas  Ream  many 
years  ago.  Dr.  Edward  Palmer  contributed  to  this  series 
also  material  from  southern  California,  especially  from  the 
caves.  This  series  contains  the  outfit  of  a  society,  since  the 
baskets  were  accompanied  also  by  head  dresses  and  musical 
instruments. 

PICKER,  Miss  ANNIE  B.,  Pasadena,  California.  General  collec- 
tion, well  selected. 

PLATT,  Mrs.  ORVILLE  H.,  Meriden,  Connecticut.    General  collection. 

PLIMPTON,  F.  S.,  San  Diego,  California.  Miscellaneous.  Very 
choice.  Fine  Pomos.  Good  examples  of  work  of  different 
tribes  throughout  northern,  central,  and  southern  California. 

POWER,  Mrs.  E.  B.,  San  Francisco,  California.     Choice  Maidus. 

PURDY,  CARL  W.,  Ukiah,  California.  Well-selected  collection  of 
Pomos. 

ROBERTS,  Mrs.  ERNEST  W.,  Chelsea,  Massachusetts.  General 
collection;  fine  old  California. 

ROSENBERG,  Mrs.  ANNA  M.,  1605  East  Madison  Street,  Seattle, 
Washington.  Some  fine  Pomos.  Few  good  examples  of 
Tulare  and  Kern  tribes. 

ROST,  Mrs.  H.,  Portland,  Oregon. 


510  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

RUMSEY,  C.  E.,  1 10  Indiana  Avenue,  Riverside,  California.  Excel- 
lent collection  from  the  Southwest;  selected  for  instruction. 

RUSSELL,  Mrs.  GEORGE  F.,  Portland,  Oregon. 

RUST,  HORATIO  N.,  Pasadena,  California.  Good,  in  work  of  the 
Missions. 

SEQUOYA  LEAGUE,  The.  A  corporation  whose  design  is  "to  make 
better  Indians."  One  of  its  objects  is  to  revive,  encourage, 
and  provide  market  for  such  aboriginal  industries  as  can  be 
made  profitable. 

SHACKELFORD,  Mrs.  R.  S.,  The  Dalles,  Oregon.  Excellent  Klikitats 
and  Wascos. 

SHARPE,  Miss  ELIZABETH  M.,  Wilkesbarre,  Pennsylvania.  Gen- 
eral collection. 

SMITH,  Mrs.  EMILY  A.,  2226  Jackson  Street,  San  Francisco,  Cali- 
fornia. Miscellaneous.  A  number  of  exceptionally  fine  Po- 
mos,  including  several  solidly  feathered.  Also  some  choice 
examples  from  Tulare,  Kern,  and  Inyo  counties,  the  Missions, 
Alaska  and  British  Columbia,  etc. 

SPIEGELBERG,  A.  F.,  Santa  Fe,  New  Mexico.  Large  collection  of 
basketry  from  southwestern  United  States. 

STANFORD,  Mrs.  JANE  L.  (Mrs.  Leland).  In  her  museum  at  Palo 
Alto  is  a  good  collection  of  Tulare  baskets.  Also  fair  repre- 
sentation of  the  Klamath  River  material.  The  latter  collected 
by  John  Daggett. 

STARR,  FREDERICK,  University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  Illinois.  Col- 
lection of  basketry  from  southern  Mexico. 

STEVENS,  Mrs.  FREDERICK  H.,  Buffalo,  New  York. 

STONE, Mrs.  B.W.,  San  Francisco, California.  Miscellaneous  collection. 
Very  good  specimens  from  various  tribes  of  central  California. 

TAPLEY,  Mrs.  Louis,  Salem,  Oregon. 

TEIT,  JAMES,  Spences  Bridge,  British  Columbia.  Good  in  Thomp- 
son River.  Largely  in  American  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
New  York. 

TEVIS,  Mrs.  WILLIAM,  Bakersfield,  California.  Large  collection 
of  baskets  of  Kern,  Inyo,  and  Tulare  tribes.  A  number  of  very 
fine  and  rare  pieces.  Many  old  examples. 

TOZIER,  D.  F.  A  very  large  and  choice  collection  from  south- 
eastern Alaska,  British  Columbia,  and  Washington.  On  exhi- 
bition in  Tacoma,  Washington. 

TUTTLE,  E.  O.,  28  State  Street,  Boston,  Massachusetts.  Miscel- 
laneous. Some  good  Pomos  and  Tulares. 


COLLECTORS    AND    COLLECTIONS  511 

UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA  is  conducting  an  exhaustive  survey 
of  the  State,  both  in  archaeology  and  ethnology,  under  the 
patronage  of  Mrs.  Phebe  A.  Hearst. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA  has  a.  large  series  of  basketry, 
sandals,  and  other  textile  material  from  the  cliff-dwellers  of 
Mancos  Canyon,  given  by  Mrs.  Phebe  A.  Hearst. 

VROMAN,  A.  C.,  Pasadena,  California.  Fine  old  Pima  and  Apache 
baskets. 

WADLEIGH,  W.  J.,  Hope  Station,  British  Columbia.     Klikitats. 

WANAMAKER,  JOHN,   Philadelphia,   Pennsylvania.     Miscellaneous. 

WHITMORE,  Mrs.  W.  L.,  Salem,  Oregon. 

WILCOMB,  C.  P.,  Memorial  Museum,  Golden  Gate  Park,  San  Fran- 
cisco, California.  Large  and  choice  collection  of  California 
basketry,  well  identified  and  labelled. 

WILLIAMS,  H.  E.,  Cassel,  California.  Fine  collection  of  Hat  Creek 
baskets. 


CHAPTER  IX 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 

And  let  her  works  praise  her  in  the  gates. — KING  LEMUEL 

THE  following  list  of  publications  will  help  to  follow  up 
this  study  in  special  lines.  A  great  awakening  of  interest  in 
the  processes  of  savage  industries  as  the  foundation  of  all 
modern  machine  work  has  stimulated  the  production  of 
excellent  books  and  papers  on  basketry.  At  the  moment  of 
going  to  press,  the  author  of  this  general  treatise  learns  of 
several.  Doctor  P.  E.  Goddard,  of  the  University  of  California, 
was  so  good  as  to  lend  his  proof  on  the  Hupas ;  Frank  Russell 
on  the  Pimas  had  not  appeared ;  Emmons  on  the  Tlinkit,  and 
Dixon  and  Kroeber's  further  studies  on  California  basketry, 
were  not  in  print. 

ANDERSON,  ADA  WOODRUFF.     Last  Industry  of  a  Passing  Race. 

Harper's  Bazaar,  November  n,  1899. 
B.,  T.  F.     Lessons  in  Basket  Weaving.    The  Papoose.    New  York, 

February  and  May,  1903. 
BANCROFT,  H.  H.     Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States.     New  York, 

D.  Appleton  &  Company,  5  vols.,  8vo.     Index   references  to 

basketry,  weaving,  and  kindred  topics. 
BARROWS,  DAVID  PRESCOTT.     The  Ethno-botany  of  the  Coahuilla 

Indians  of   Southern    California.     Chicago,    1900.     The   Uni- 
versity Press,  82  pp.,  8vo. 
BASKET,   The.     A   quarterly   journal.     Vol.    i,    1903.     Pasadena, 

California.     Edited   by    George   Wharton   James.     Organ   of 

The  Basket  Fraternity. 
BLANCHAN,    NELTJE.     What   the    Basket    Means  to   the    Indian. 

Everybody's  Magazine,  V,    1901,  pp.  561-570,  illustrated. 
BOAS,  FRANZ.     The  Decorative  Art  of  the  Indians  of  the  North 

Pacific  Coast.     Bulletin  American  Museum  of  Natural  His- 

512 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  513 

tory,  New  York,  IX,   1897,  54  pp.       See  also  the  author's 
papers  in  Reports  of  British  Association,  1889-1891. 

BUREAU  OF  AMERICAN  ETHNOLOGY.  Reports,  bulletins,  and  mis- 
cellaneous publications  abound  in  papers  discussing  basketry 
and  related  matters,  1879-1903. 

CARPENTER,  H.  M.  How  Indian  Baskets  are  Made.  The  Cos- 
mopolitan, October,  1900. 

CARR,  JEANNIE  C.  Among  the  Basketmakers,  California.  Illus- 
trated Magazine,  October,  1892. 

CHANNING,  GRACE  ELLERY.  The  Baskets  of  Anita.  Scribner's 
Magazine,  August,  1890. 

CHESNUT,  V.  K.  Plants  Used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino 
County,  California.  Washington,  1902.  Contributions  to  the 
National  Herbarium,  VII,  pp.  295-408. 

CHITTENDEN,  NEWTON  H.  Among  the  Cocopahs.  Land  of  Sun- 
shine, Los  Angeles,  California,  1901,  pp.  196-210,  illustrated. 

COLES,  CLAUDIA  STUART.  Aboriginal  Basketry  in  the  United 
States.  The  House  Beautiful,  February,  1900. 

COVILLE,  FREDERICK  V.  The  Panamint  Indians  of  California. 
American  Anthropologist,  V,  1892,  pp.  351-361.  Washing- 
ton. 

.     Directions    for  Collecting    Specimens    and    Information 

Illustrating  the  Aboriginal  Uses  of  Plants,  Bulletin  No.  39, 
Part  J,  United  States  National  Museum. 

.     Wokas — Primitive  Food  of  the  Klamath  Indians.   Report 

of  the  United  States  National  Museum  for  1902. 

GUSHING,  FRANK  HAMILTON.  Pottery  Affected  by  Environment. 
Fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1882, 
pp.  482-521,  64  figs. 

DELLENBAUGH,  F.  S.  The  North  Americans  of  Yesterday.  New 
York,  1901. 

DIXON,  ROLAND  B.  Basketry  Designs  of  the  Maidu  Indians  of 
California.  American  Anthropologist,  June,  1900. 

.     Basketry  Designs  of  the  Indians  of  Northern  California. 

(The  Huntingdon  California  Expedition.)  Bulletin,  Ameri- 
can Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  XVII,  pp.  1-32, 
37  plates. 

,    and   ALFRED   L.    KROEBER.     The   Native   Languages  of 

California.  American  Anthropologist,  Washington,  N.  S., 
V,  1903,  pp.  1-26,  8  figs. 


514  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

DODGE,  CHARLES   RICHARDS.     Report  on  the  Leaf  Fibers  of  the 

United    States.     Department    of    Agriculture,     Washington, 

1893.     Fiber  Investigations — Report  No.  5. 
DOUBLEDAY,  Mrs.   F.   N.     Indian  Industrial  Development.     The 

Outlook,  January  12,  1901. 
DUBOIS,  CONSTANCE  GODDARD.     Manzanita  Basketry,  a  Revival. 

The  Papoose,  June,  1903,  pp.  21-27. 
EMMONS,  G.  T.     The  Basketry  of  the  Tlingit.     Memoirs,  American 

Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York,  1903,  III,  Pt.  2,18  pis. 

and  text  figures. 
FARRAND,  LIVINGSTON.     Basketry  Designs  of  the  Salish  Indians. 

Memoirs,  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York, 

1900,  II,  Pt.  5,  6  pp.,  3  pis.,  15  figs. 
FEWKES,  J.  WALTER.     A  Contribution  to  Ethno-botany  of  Tusa- 

yan.     American  Anthropologist,  Washington,   1896,    IX,  pp. 

14-22. 

— .     Hopi   Basket   Dances.     Journal  of  American  Folk-lore, 

April- June,  1899. 

The  Snake  Ceremonial  at  Walpi.     Journal  of  American 


Ethnology  and  Archaeology,  IV. 
FIRTH,  ANNIE.     Cane  Basket  Work,  i  and  2  series.     London. 
GODDARD,  P.  E.     Life  and  Culture  of  the  Hupas.     Publications  of 

the  University  of  California.     First  volume  of  the  series  on 

American  Archaeology   and  Ethnology,   Berkeley,   California. 

Vol.  i,  No.  i,  88  pp.,  30  pi.;   also  No.  2,  Hupa  Texts,  290  pp. 

September,  i903~March,  1904. 
HARSHBERGER,    J.    W.     Purposes    of    Ethno-botany.     Botanical 

Gazette,  XXI,  No.  3. 
HARVARD,   VICTOR.     The    Food   Plants   of   the   North   American 

Indians.      Bulletin,    Torrey    Botanical    Club,   XXII,    No.   2, 

February;    No.  3,  March,  1895. 

— ,     Drink  Plants  of  the  North  American  Indians.     Bulletin, 

Torrey  Botanical  Club,  XXIII,  No.  2,  February,  1896. 
HOFFMAN,  WALTER  JAMES.     The  Menomini  Indians.     Fourteenth 

Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  1896, 

pp.  3-328,  pis.  i.-xxin,  54  figs. 
HOLMES,   WILLIAM    HENRY.     Prehistoric   Textile    Fabrics   of  the 

United  States  Derived  from  Impressions  on  Pottery.     Third 

Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Pt.  i,  1884,  pp. 

397-425,  i  pi. ,55  figs. ;  also  Volume  XIII,  43  pp.,  9  pis.,  28  figs. 

— .     A  Study  of  the  Textile  Art  in  its  Relation  to  the  Develop- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  515 

ment  of  Form  and  Ornament.  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  1888,  pp.  189-252,  figs. 
286  to  358. 

Anthropological   Studies   in   California.     Report   of  the 


United  States  National  Museum,  1900,  pp.  155-187. 

HOUGH,  MYRTLE  ZUCK  (Mrs.  Walter).  Plant  names  of  the  South- 
western United  States.  The  Plant  World,  Washington,  1900, 
III,  p.  137- 

HOUGH,  WALTER.  Primitive  American  Armour.  Report  of  the 
United  States  National  Museum,  1893,  PP-  625-651. 

.  The  Hopi  in  Relation  to  Their  Plant  Environment. 

American  Anthropologist,  X,  February,  1897. 

.     Environmental   Interrelations   in   Arizona.         American 


Anthropologist,  Washington,  XI,  1898,  pp.  133-155. 
HUDSON,  J.  W.     Porno  Basket  Makers.     Overland  Monthly,  San 

Francisco,  June,  1893. 
HuiMBOLDT,  ALEXANDER  VON.     Essay  on  New  Spain.      II,  p.  297, 

note  on  California  basketry. 
IM  THURN,  E.  F.     Among  the  Indians  of  British  Guiana.     London, 

1895,  p.  278. 
JAMES,  GEORGE  WHARTON.     Symbolism  in  Indian  Basketry.     The 

Traveller,  San  Francisco,  August,  1899. 

— .     Poems  in  Indian  Baskets.     The  Evening  Lamp,  Chicago, 

September  8,  1900. 
.     Indian    Basketry.     Pasadena,    1901,    privately    printed. 

238  pp.,  300  ills.,  8vo.     Third  edition,  1903. 
.     The  Art  of  Indian  Basketry.     The  Southern  Workman, 

August,  1901,  10  pp.,  8  figs. 

— .     Basket    Makers    of    California    at    Work.     Sunset,    San 


Francisco,  California,  November,  1901,  12  pp.,  13  figs. 
KNAPP,     ELIZABETH    SANBORN.       Raffia    and     Reed    Weaving. 

Springfield,  Massachusetts,  1903. 

KROEBER,  ALFRED   L.,     The  Arapaho.     Bulletin,  American  Mu- 
seum Natural  History,  New  York,  1902,  XVIII,   pp.   1-150. 

Also  other  papers  on  symbolism. 
LUMHOLZ,  CARL.     Symbolism  of  the   Huichol   Indians,   Memoirs, 

American  Museum  Natural  History,  New  York,  III.     Pt.  i. 
McGEE,  W  J      The  Seri  Indians.      Seventeenth  Annual  Report 

of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1892,  336  pp.,  56  pis.,  42  figs. 
MACNAUGHTON,     CLARA.     Nevada     Indian     Baskets     and    Their 

Makers.     Out  West,  Los  Angeles,  April  and  May,  1903. 


5 1 6  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

MASON,  OTIS  T.  Basketwork  of  the  North  American  Aborigines- 
Report  United  States  National  Museum,  1884,  pp.  291-300,. 
pis.  i-xiv. 

.  The  Ray  Collection  from  the  Hupa  Reservation.  Smith- 
sonian Report,  1886,  pp.  205-239,  26  plates. 

.     Primitive  Travel  and  Transportation.     Report   United 

States  National  Museum,  1894. 

.     Woman's  Share  in  Primitive  Culture.     New  York,  1894. 

.     Types  of  American  Basketry.     Scientific  American,  New 

York,  July  28,  1900. 

.      The     Technique    of     Aboriginal     American     Basketry. 

American    Anthropologist,    N.    S.,    Ill,    1901,    pp.    109-128,. 
Washington,  January-March,  1901. 

Directions  for  Collectors  of  American  Basketry.    Part  P.,. 


Bulletin  39,   United  States   National  Museum,   Washington* 
1902,  pp.  1-31,  44  figs. 

MATTHEWS,  WASHINGTON.     Navaho  Weavers.     Third  Annual  Re- 
port of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1 88 1, pp. 3 7 1-39 1,3  pis.,  15  figs. 

.     A  Study  in  Butts  and  Tips.     American  Anthropologist,. 

Washington,  October,  1892. 

.     The    Basket    Drum.     American   Anthropologist,    Wash- 
ington, 1894,  VII. 

The  Night  Chant:     A  Navaho  Ceremony.     Memoirs  of 


the  American  Museum  Natural  History,  New  York,  1902,  VI. 

MERRIAM,  C.  HART.  Some  Little  -  Known  Basket  Materials. 
Science,  XVII,  1903,  p.  826.  See  also  Doctor  Mer- 
riam's  article  in  the  same  journal,  on  Distribution  of 
Indian  Tribes  in  the  Southern  Sierra  and  Adjacent 
Parts  of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  California,  pp.  912-917,. 
June  17,  1904. 

MINDELEFF,  COSMOS.  Aboriginal  Remains  in  Verde  Valley. 
Thirteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1896,, 
pp.  176-261,  40  pis.,  26  figs. 

MOLSON,  Mrs.  W.  MARKLAND.  Basketry  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 
Portland,  Oregon,  1896. 

MURDOCH,  JOHN.  Ethnological  Results  of  the  Point  Barrow 
Expedition.  Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnol- 
ogy, Washington,  1892. 

NELSON,  E.  W.  The  Eskimo  About  Bering  Strait.  Eighteenth 
Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,, 
1899. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  517 

NORDENSKJOLD,  G.  The  Cliff-Dwellers  of  the  Mesa  Verde.  Stock- 
holm, 1894. 

OUT  WEST,  formerly  THE  LAND  OF  SUNSHINE,  Los  Angeles,  Cal- 
ifornia. Monthly  journal,  edited  by  Charles  F.  Lummis. 

PALMER,  EDWARD.  Plants  used  by  the  Indians  of  the  United 
States.  American  Naturalist,  XII,  p.  653. 

PAPOOSE,  THE.  Monthly  journal  published  by  the  Benham  Explor- 
ing Expedition.  New  York,  1903. 

PEPPER,  GEORGE  H.  The  Ancient  Basket  Makers  of  Southeastern 
Utah.  Journal  'American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  II, 
Guide  leaflet  No.  6,  New  York,  1902. 

PERCIVAL,  OLIVE  M.  The  Lost  Art  of  Indian  Basketry.  Demo- 
rest's  Family  Magazine,  February,  1897. 

PORCHER,  C.  GADSDEN.  Aleut  Basketry.  The  Craftsman,  New 
York,  March,  1904,  pp.  575~583- 

POWERS,  STEPHEN.  Aboriginal  Botany.  Proceedings,  California 
Academy  of  Sciences.  V. 

.  The  Indians  of  California.  Contributions  to  North 

American  Ethnology,  Washington,  III,  1877. 

PURDY,  CARL.  The  Pomo  Indian  Baskets  and  Their  Makers. 
Land  of  Sunshine  and  Out  West,  Los  Angeles,  California. 
A  series  of  illustrated  papers  of  great  value  running  through 
Volumes  XV  and  XVI,  1901, 1902,  in  that  journal,  with  many 
illustrations,  and  also  in  pamphlet  form. 

REID,  HUGO.  The  California  Farmer,  1861.  Old  files  for  early 
references. 

SCHMIDT,  MAX.  Ableitung  sudamerikanischer  Geflechtmuster 
aus  der  Technik  des  Flechtens,  Ztschr.  f.  Ethnol.,  1904,  pp. 
490-512,  40  figs. 

SCHUMACHER,  PAUL.  In  Archaeology  of  the  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey  West  of  the  One  Hundreth  Meridian,  VII,  pp. 
239-250. 

SCIDMORE,  ELIZA  RUHAMAH.  Indian  Baskets.  Harper's  Bazaar, 
September  i,  1894. 

SELLERS,  GEORGE  E.  Markings  on  Potter}',  of  Salt  Springs, 
Illinois.  Popular  Science  Monthly,  New  York,  XI,  p.  573. 

SHACKELFORD,  R.  S.  The  Wasco  Sally  Bag.  Sunset,  San  Fran- 
cisco, January,  1904,  p.  258. 

STARR,  FREDERICK.  Notes  on  the  Ethnography  of  Southern 
Mexico.  Proceedings,  Davenport  Academy  of  Sciences,  IX, 
1902. 


518  INDIAN    BASKETRY 

STEARNS,   MARY   WATROUS.     A   School   Without   Books.     Battle 

Creek,  Michigan,  1902. 
STEPHEN,  A.  M.     The  Navajo.     American  Anthropologist,  October, 

1893- 

STEVENSON,  JAMES.  Illustrated  Catalogues  of  Collections.  Sec- 
ond and  Third  Annual  Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology, 
Washington,  1879-1881. 

TEIT,  JAMES.  The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia. 
Memoirs  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  II,. 
Pt.  4,  New  York,  1900,  391  pp.,  7  pis.,  197  figs. 

WEST,  ARTHUR  B.  University  Club,  Denver,  Colorado.  Basketry 
photographs. 

WHITE,  MARY.  How  to  Make  Baskets.  New  York,  1902,  194  pp., 
ill.;  also  More  Baskets  and  How  to  Make  Them.  New  York, 
1903. 

WILKIE,  HARRIET  CUSHMAN.  American  Basketry.  The  Modern 
Priscilla,  Boston,  June,  1902. 

WILLOUGHBY,  C.  C.  Hats  from  the  Nutka  Sound  Region.  Ameri- 
can Naturalist,  Boston,  1903,  pp.  65-68,  i  pi. 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Abenaki  Indian  basketmaker. .  .   272 
basketry  borders 107 

Accessories  used  in  basketry. .  .      55 

Acorn  harvest,  description  of .  .    234 
mush  maker,  Porno,  outfit 

of 235 

Adornment    and    dress,    use    of 
basketry  in 223 

Aht   basketry 331 

Alaskan  Eskimo,  basket  making 

by 51 

basketry 303 

coiled  baskets 94,  311 

Alaskan  region,  basketry  of.  ...    296 
basket-making    tribes    and 
families 256 

Alaskas,  four  basket-making.  .  .    233 

Aleut  basket  making 143 

symbolism 188 

Aleutian  basketry 312 

ornamentation 314 

twined 314,315 

Algonkin  Indian  basketry,  deco- 
ration     271 

symbolism 178 

Algonkin    weaving,    northern 

twilled   matting 273 

Amazon  tribes,  upper,  domestic 
utensils 231 

Amazonian    basket    decorations 
in  checker 144 

American   basketry,   aboriginal. 

(See  Basketry.) 
list  of  collections  in 501 

Ancient  Basket  Makers 444 

cave  baskets 429 

Pueblo  coiled  basketry.  .  .  .    450 

Andamanese,  open  fish  baskets.    294 

Apache  Indian  basketry .  .  .  .461,  463 

carrying  baskets 219 

coiled  work 92 

dyes 169 

water-tight    vessel 72 

Arabian  Nights,  quotation  from     vi 

Arapaho  Indian  gambling  bas- 
kets    278 

symbolism   179 

Araucanian  Indian  basketry. .  .   491 

Arawak  Indian  basketry 487 

Arikara  Indian  twilled  basket. .   293 


PAGE 

Arizona,  ancient  forms  and  uses 

of  basketry  in 460 

Arnott,     William,     information 

from 340 

Athapascan  basketry 296,  461 

family,  Pacific  slope  branch  373 

Indian  game  bags 279 

snowshoe  detail 275 

tribes,  central  Alaska,  bas- 
ket making  of 51 

Attakapa    Indian    twilled    bas- 
kets     292 

Attu  basketmaker 316 

weavers 68 

color,  how  obtained  by .  .      51 

Awl,  bone,  basketmaker's 50 

for  coiled  basketry 86,  87 

Bakairi  Indian  carrying  basket.   489 
Bam  shi  bu  coiled  basketry ....  97,  98 

Bamtush  coiled  basketry 69 

Barrows,  D.  P.,  tribes  in  south- 
ern California 423 

Basket  armor  of  tribes  on  Pa- 
cific  coast 222 

boat 219 

bottles,  Paiute 251 

dance 245 

derivation  of  the  word y 

Greek  word  for vii 

hat 223 

jar,  Porno,  water-tight.  ...      55 

Makers 443 

coiled  basketry 443,  444 

making  (see  Basketry) ...      44 

art  of,  degenerating 8 

canes  for 51 

characteristics  to  be  ob- 
served in 7 

harvesting  materials  for.44,  45 

knives 50 

mechanism 48 

preparing  materials  for.44,  47 
processes  of  manufacture 

in 44,  54 

sweet  grass  in 50 

tribes,  list  of 260 

Basketmakers,  moving  about  of,  41 4 
tools   of 53 


519 


520 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Basketry        (See    Basket   mak- 
ing.) 

aboriginal  American v 

accessories  used  in 55 

Alaskan  region 296 

Aleutian 312 

alphabetical  list  of  uses.  ...  252 

American,  list  of  collections.  501 

Athapascan 461 

bibliography  of 512 

borders  on 105 

California-Oregon  region .  .  .  363 

checkerwork  in 56 

coiled 84 

and  lace  work,  transition.  86 

Athapascan 296 

kinds  of 6 

coiled  work  without  foun- 
dation   88 

collectors  and  collections.  .  501 
coloring  matters  for,  in  an- 
cient  times 48 

cooking-pots  of 228 

decoration    of 17 

definition   of 3 

designs  in  decorating 153 

diagonal  twined  weaving  in.  71 
differentiated     from     loom 

products 5 

network 5 

dyes  for  coloring,  how  ob- 
tained   17 

Eastern     North     American 

region 269 

Eskimo 301 

ethnic  varieties  of 255 

fireproof 17 

form  and  structure  in.  ...  133 

foundation  used  in 53 

Fraser-Columbia  region.256,  330 

Fuegian  coiled 103 

furcate  stitches  in  coiled.  ...    85 

grass-coil  foundation  in ....  101 

Haida 326 

imbricated 99 

Interior  Basin  region 431 

lattice-twined  weaving  in ..  75 

leaves  of  plants  used  in ....  47 
lists  of  plants  used  in,  pre- 
pared  by   F.    V.    Coville 
and  V.  K.  Chesnut.  ...  19,  367 

materials  for 17 

Middle  and  South  American 

region 481 

mosaic  effects  in 141 

ornamentation  on 131 

through  color 161 

paints  for  coloring,  how  ob- 
tained   17 

papoose  frames  of 221 


PAGE 

plain  twined  weaving  in ...      69 

plants  used  in 19 

preparation  of  materials  for.  47 
preserved  by  pottery.  .  .269,  286 
regions  in  which  it  may  be 

compared 5 

rod  and  welt  foundation ...      95 

roots  used  in 45 

Shoshonean  and  Pueblo.  .  .  432 
simple  interlocking  coils ...  90 

single-rod   foundation 92 

splint  foundation 99 

stems  used  in 46 

subdivisions  under  which  it 

may  be  studied 4 

symbolism 178 

technic  in,  types  of 6 

preserved  in  impressions 
on  pottery  and  in  caves  285 

tee-twined  weaving 76 

three-rod  foundation 97 

strand  braid 80 

twined  weaving 78,  79 

Tlinkit 317 

tools  used  in 54 

twilled  work  in 58 

twined,  Tlinkit 55 

twined  work 67 

two-rod  and  splint  founda- 
tions       96 

foundation 94 

uses  of 213 

as  a  receptacle 242 

in  carrying  water 249 

defense  and  war 222 

dress  and  adornment .  .    223 
fine  art  and  culture. .  .    225 
gleaning  and  milling.  .    230 
house-building  and  fur- 
niture     238 

manufacture     of    pot- 
tery     280 

mortuary  customs.  ...    239 
preparing  and  serving 

food 228 

relation  to  the  potter's 

art 240 

religion 244 

social  life 247 

the  carrying  industry.    217 

trapping 248 

Ute    Indian,    for  mortuary 

purposes vi 

varieties  of  forms  in 5 

vocabulary  of 10 

water-tight. 18,  104 

wickerwork 62 

woven 6,56 

wrapped    twined    weaving 
in 65,  67 


INDEX 


521 


PAGE 

Beading  on  basketry 172 

twined  work,  Klamath  In- 
dians     172 

Beads,  featherwork,  etc.,  in  or- 
namentation     175 

Benham,  J.  W.,  collections  men- 
tioned  161, 499 

Bible,  quotation  from,  regarding 

baskets vi 

Bibliography  of  basketry 512 

Bilhula  Indian  basketry 339 

Birch-bark  trays,  border  on.  ...    128 

Bird-cage  twine 73 

Blanket  twill  in  basketry 60 

Boas,     Franz,     on     Thompson 

River  basketry 341 

Bone  awl  for  coiled  basketry.  .86,  87 

Border  of  checker  work 106 

coided  work 123 

twilled  work 107 

twined  work no 

wicker  work 107 

Borders  on  basketry 105 

Boror6  Indian  carrying-basket .  .   489 

Bowl  forms  in  baskets 138 

Braid,  three-strand 80 

Brazilian  basketry 488-491 

British     Columbia,     imbricated 

basket  work  of 90 

Guiana   basketry 487 

Bryant,    Edwin,    description    of 

acorn  harvest  by 234 

Burial  caves,  prehistoric,  twined 
basketry  and  matting 482 

Caddoan  Indian  coiled  gambling 

baskets 287 

twilled  weaving 43 1 

Cadricios  Indian  basketry 491 

Caliente  Creek  Indian  baskets.  .   418 
California  Indian  coiled  baskets.    377 
linguistic  families  in,  loca- 
tion of 364 

northern,    eastern    portion, 

linguistic  families 398 

California-Oregon  basket  region, 
basket    making   and   types 

in 256,363 

coiled  work 430 

families 402 

tribes,  account  of 423 

twined  weaving 430 

Canes  for  basket  making 51 

Carib  basketry   482 

pegalls 487 

Carrying       basket,        Klamath 

Indian 81 

frame  and  net 89 

industry,   use   of   basketry 
in 217 


PAGE 

Carrying  sack,  Concow  Indians.  378 

Cassava    strainer 231 

Cave .     explorations,      basketry 

brought  to  light  by 283 

Cayuse   Indian  soft  baskets  in 

twined  weaving 362 

Central     Eskimo     coiled     bas- 
kets  277, 278 

Ceremonial  basket,   Hupa 247 

Ceyal  Porno  basketry,  border  of  .   113 

Checkerwork,  basketry  in 56 

border  of 106 

decoration  in    144 

distribution  of 284 

Chemehuevi  Indian  basketry.  .  .   472 
Cherokee  Indian  clothes  baskets.  292 
colors,  natural  sources  of .  .      51 
Chesnut     V.     K.,     information 

from 18 

list  of  plants  used  in  bas- 
ketry      367 

plants  used  by  aborigines.  .      19 
Chetimacha  Indian  twilled  bas- 
ketry      291 

Chevlon,    wicker    baskets    from 

graves    at 459 

Cheyenne       Indian       gambling 

baskets 278 

Chilean  coiled  basketry,  ancient.  499 
Chilkat  Indian  blanket  weaver.    273 

ceremonial    blanket 324 

border 130 

symbolism 180 

Chimmeseyan   family ,   basketry 

of 331 

Chinook  Indian  basketry.  .359,  362 
Chippewa  Indian  basketry  and 

matting,  Michigan.  .  .270-272 

Chiriqui  carrying  net 492 

Choctaw  Indian  twilled  baskets.  291 

Chukchi  coiled  baskets 311 

twined  wallet 304 

Cladium,  baskets  of,  tribes  mak- 
ing     404 

Clallam   Indian  basketry 332 

twilled  basket  work 354 

twined  baskets 358 

water-tight    basket 355 

Clatsop  Indian  basketry 363 

Cliff  Dwellers,  ancient,  sandals 

of 445 

Coahuilla  Indian  basketry.  .423-428 

coiled 405 

Coconino  basketry  dyes 170 

Cohn,     Mrs.     A.,     information 

on  Washoes 401 

Coiled  basketry 84 

and   lace   work,   transition 

between 86 

Athapascan 296 


522 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Coiled  bone  awl  for 85,   87 

by  whom  made 5  2 

decoration ,  mosaic  elements 

in 148,  149 

form  and  designs 87 

how    made 52 

kinds  of 6 

needlework  approached  in.        5 

size 87 

varieties 87 

Coiled  ware ,  ancient,  in  Arizona .   460 

symbolism  on 187 

tool  employed  in  manufac- 
ture of 7 

Coiled  work,  borders  on 123 

changes  to  lace  work 279 

•     interrupted  style  of 420 

without  foundation 89 

Collectors  and  collections,  bas- 
ketry      501 

Color.     (See  Dyes.) 

Attu  basketry 51 

Cherokee   Indian  basketry, 

etc 51 

Makah  Indian  basketry.  . .      53 
ornamentation         through. 
(See  Ornamentation.) 

Coloring,  list  of  plants  used  in .  .    177 
matters    for   basketry,    an- 
cient times 48 

Colors  having  significance  with 

the    Porno 202 

Columbia- Eraser     region,     bas- 
ketry in 256,  330 

Comanche  Indian  coiled  tray.  .  .    278 

Complex  patterns  in  decorating 

basketry 160 

Concow  Indian  carrying  sack.  .  .    378 

Cooking  pots  of  basketry 228 

Couteau    Indian    basketry    (see 

Thompson) 339,   340 

Coville,     Frederick    V.,    plants 

used  in  basketry 19 

plants  used  in  coloring.  ...    177 
thanks  due 7 

Cowlitz  Indian  imbricated  bas- 
ket     352 

type  of  imbricated  basketry  347 

Coyotero  Indian  coiled  bowl.  .  .   464 

Culture  and  fine  art,  use  of  bas- 
ketry in 225 

Gushing,  F.  H.,  on  fireproofing 

basketry     17 

Daggett,  John,  information 

from 377 

Dall,  William  H.,  on  Aleutian 

baskets 312 

Dance  baskets,  Hopi  sacred.  .  .  .    245 

Decoration,  basketry 17,  131 


Decoration,  complex  patterns  in  160 

designs  in 153 

lines  in  ornament 154 

mosaic  elements  in 141 

polygonal  elements  in 159 

rhomboidal  figures  in 157 

squares  or  rectangles  in ...  155 

triangles  in 158 

Defense  and  war,  use  of  basketry 

in 222 

de  Leon,  Perry  M.,  on  the  Pa- 
nama hat 492 

Desert,  or  Interior  region,  bas- 
ket-making families 257 

Designs  in  decoration.  (See 
Decoration.) 

Maidu  (Pujunan) 207 

Moquelumnan 207 

Nozi  (Yanan) 207 

Pit  River  (Palaihnihan)  .  .  .  207 

Porno  (Kulanapan) 205 

Wintun  (Copehan) 206 

Diagonal  or  twilled  technic  in 

basketry 294 

twined  weaving 71 

Diaper  or  figured  work,  processes 

of    crossing 291 

twilled  work  in  two  colors .  .  145 

Dieguenos  Indian  basketry.  .  .  .  423 

twined  basket 430 

Dish  forms  in  baskets 137 

Dixon,  Roland  B.,  basketry 
types  of  northern  Cali- 
fornia    206 

on  Maidu  basketry  symbols.  400 

symbolism 200,  207 

Dog  Rib  Indian  game  bag 279 

Dorsey,  George  A.,  on  Peruvian 

basketry 498 

Dress   and   adornment,   use   of 

basketry  in 223 

Du  Pratz,  quoted 232 

Dyeing  in  ornamentation  of  bas- 
ketry    167 

Dyes.     (See;  Color.) 

how  obtained 17 

Menomini  Indian 50 

Eastern  North  American  bas- 
ketry   255, 269 

Eastwood,     Miss     Alice,     plant 

identified  by 404 

Ecuador  twilled  weaving 492 

Eells,     Myron,     information 

from 337,  342 

Egyptians,  baskets  used  by.  ...   vii 

Emmons,  G.  T.,  identifications 

made  by 189 

on  basketry  borders  ....115,  1 1 6 

Eskimo  basketry 301 


INDEX 


523 


Eskimo    coiled 305 

grass  bags  in 303 

symbolism  on 188 

twined,  basket-making  pro- 
cess    143 

Eskimo  women,  basket  making.  307 

Ethnic  symbolism 187 

varieties  of  basketry 255 

False  embroidery 55 

ornamentation 172 

Fanning  trays,  basketry 237 

Farrand,  Livingston,  symbolism 

on  Salish  basketry 193 

Feather  work  in  ornamentation 

of  basketry 175 

Fine  art  and  culture,  use  of  bas- 
ketry in 225 

Fireproof,  basketry  rendered ...  17 

Flat  forms  of  baskets 137 

Food,  use  of  basketry  in  prepar- 
ing arid  serving 228 

Form  and  structure  in  basketry  133 

Foundations  for  basketry 52 

weaving  baskets,  manner  of 

laying 82 

Fraser-Columbia  region,  bas- 
ketry of 256,  330 

Fresno  type  of  work 411 

Fuegian   coiled  basketry 103 

Furcate  stitches  in  coiled  bas- 

.  ketry 85 

Furniture   and   house -building, 

use  of  basketry  in 238 

Gambling  trays,  basket.  .  .  .247,  248 
Gerstaecker's  Journal,  quotation 

from 233 

Gift  basket,  Porno 247 

Gleaning  and  milling,  use  of  bas- 
ketry in 230 

Goddard,  P.  E.,  quoted  on  Hupa 

basketry 376 

Gookin,  quoted 276 

Grass-coil  foundation  in  coiled 

work 101 

Grasshopper  baskets,  so-called  92,  421 
Great    Interior   Basin   basketry 

region 431 

Guatos    Indian    basketry 491 

Guiana  Indian  basket  work.  ...   487 

Haida  basketry 326 

color  designs  not  woven  in .  330 

Haida  Indian  basketmakers ....  330 

hats 118,223,326 

position  in  weaving 68 

symbolism 179,  191 

twined  basketry  borders 1 15,  122 
wallets  of  spruce 326 


Harvesting  materials  for  basket 

making 44,45 

outfit,  Hupa  Indian 234 

Hat  Creek  Indian  basketry.  ...   398 
Havasupai    Indian   basket   ren- 
dered fireproof 17 

basketmaker 471 

basketry 470 

basketry  dyes 170 

detail  of  border  on  basket .  .    127 
Hazel   stalks,   used   by   Oregon 

tribes 53 

Hoffman,  Walter  J.,  quoted. 49,   274 
Holmes,  William  H.,  on  aesthetic 

effects 164 

basketry  in  relation  to  pot- 
ter's art 240 

form 5,6 

ornamentation 7 

Hoochnom  Indian  coiled  basket.  391 
Hopi  Indian  basket  dances.  .  .  .    245 

basketry 452 

in  carrying  industry.  ...    219 

bridal  costume  case 239 

coarse  wickerwork 455 

coiled  basket  border 125 

plaques 102 

meal  trays 229,  454 

ornamentation  on  ....   454 

symbolism 179,  210 

twilled  basketry,  modern.  .   455 

twined  ware    456 

weaving,  type  of 84 

wicker  plaque 454 

Hot  Spring  Valley  Indian  names 

for  baskets 394 

Hough,   Walter,   on   basket 

dances 245 

colors  in  Hopi  basketry.  ...    453 

Hopi  basket  work 452 

materials   of   Navaho   bas- 
ketry     469 

House   building   and   furniture, 

use  of  basketry  in 238 

Hrdlicka,  Ales,  on  Havasupai  & 

Hualapai 470 

Hualapai  Indian  basket  work.  .   470 
Hudson,  J.  W.,  classification  of 

Porno  basket  work 384 

interpretations   of  symbols 

by 202 

notes  by,  on  Porno  bas- 
ketry   381,382 

Huichole  Indian  basketry 484 

Hupa  Indian  basketry 219 

materials  used  in 374 

overlaying  in  weaving 170 

plants  used  in 367 

symbolism  on 375 

twined  weaving  in 1 13,  375 


524 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Hupa  Indian  baskets  for  carry- 
in  219 

ceremony 247 

collecting  seeds 234 

cradles 221 

food  service 373 

harvesting  outfit 234 

storage 234 

Hypurina  Indian  carrying  bas- 
ket   488 

Imbricated  basketry 100 

Athapascan,     Salish,     and 

Shahaptian 342 

ornamentation  on 175 

Implements    used    by    basket- 
makers 53 

Interior    Basin    region,    basket- 
making  families 257 

basketry  of 431 

ethnic  groups 432 

Interlocking  coils,  simple 90 

Interrupted  coiled  work 420 

Inyo  basketry 412,  413 

plants 4°5 

Inyo  county,  coiled  work  from .  .   402 
-Kern  basketry 411,  412 

Iquique,     graves     of,     carrying 
frame  from 497 

Iroquois  Indian  basket  work.  231,  270 

Israelites,  baskets  used  by vii 

Jamamadi  Indian  carrying  bas- 
ket   488 

James,  George  Wharton,  quoted.  132 

Jar  forms  in  baskets 139 

Jepson,  W.  L.,  information  from.  374 

Jewel  basket  of  Porno 177 

Kabischi    Indian   carrying  bas- 
ket  ". 489 

Kadiak  Eskimo  baskets 314 

Kaingua  Indian  carrying  basket.  490 
Kamchatkan  twined  wallet.  ...  304 
Katchinas  or  Hopi  sacred  bas- 
kets   185 

Kentucky,  caves  of,  ancient  tex- 
tiles preserved  in 294 

Kern    and    Tulare    coiled    bas- 
kets  406, 421 

King,  Clarence,  quoted 240 

Kiowa  Indian  gambling  baskets.  278 

symbolism 179 

Klamath  Indian  basketry  orna- 
mentation    147 

beading  on  twined  work ...  172 

mud  shoe 46 

three-strand  baskets 394 

tribes 392 

twined  basketry 393 


PAGE 
Klamath  River  Indian  basketry, 

overlaying 171 

Klikitat       baskets,       so-called, 

where  found 348 

imbricated  basketry,  mod- 
ern and  old  form.;  in ....   348 
imbricated  coil  work,  how 

made 100,  346 

Indians,    Mrs.    Molson    on 

the 350 

Knife  Indian  basketry 339,  340 

Knives  used  in  basket  making ..  50 
Kroeber,  A.  L.,  quoted 187,  366 

Label,  basketry 502 

Lace  work  and  coiled  basketry, 

transition  between 86 

Lake  Dwellers,  baskets  of v 

Lang,  Miss  Anne  M.,  collection 

_  of ........ 348 

Lattice-twined  weaving 75 

Leaves  of  plants  used  in  bas- 
ketry      47 

twilled  work 58 

Lillooet  style  of  basketry 96 

Lines  in  basketry  ornament ....  154 
Linguistic  families  in  California, 

location  of 365 

northern     and    southern 

groups 364,  365 

Little  Lake  Indian  baskets.  .377,  380 
Louisiana  Indian  baskets.  .  .232,  292 
Lower  Thompson  Indian  mats.  .  340 
Luisenos  Indian  basketry 423 

McCloud  River  Indian  basketry.   396 

border 114 

Mackenzie  River  snowshoe 275 

McLeod,  E.  L.,  collection  of.  ...  412 
Maidu  Indian  basketry,  symbols 

of 400 

designs 207 

Makah  Indian  basketmakers .  .  .    336 
basketry,       ornamentation 

°n--,- : 332-334 

colors,  how  obtained 53 

mats 220 

Manavi  or  Panama  hat 492 

Mandan    coiled   gambling    bas- 
kets     278 

Manufacture,    processes    of,    in 

basket  making 44,  54 

Maricopa  Indian  basket  boat ...    219 

making 473 

Markings    on    pottery,    textile, 

classes  of 281 

Massawomeke  basket  shields  or 

armor 223 

Materials    for    basket    making, 
harvesting 44,  45 


INDEX 


525 


PAGE 

Materials  for  preparing 47 

Materials  for  basketry 17 

Matthews,  Washington,  on  dyes.   169 

Navaho  basketry 469,  470 

Matting,     ancient,     in     twilled 

weaving 459 

Meal  trays,  Hopi  Indian 229 

Mechanism  in  basket  making ...      48 

Menomini  Indian  basketry 274 

dyes 50 

Merriam,    C.    Hart,    studies    in 

California  basketry.  .403,  409 
type  collection  of  basketry .        7 
Mescalero  Apache  Indian  basket 

work 91 

baskets 465,  467 

Mexican  fibers 492 

Middle    American    basketry    fi- 
bers    492 

symbols 210-212 

Middle  and  South  American  bas- 
ketry region 257,  481 

Milling  and  gleaning,  uses  of  bas- 
ketry in 230 

Mission           Indian           basket- 
makers 42 1-43 1 

Modoc  Indian  baskets 392 

women's  hats 361 

Mohave  Indian  baskets 237 

Moki  (see  Hopi) 452 

Molson,    Mrs.,    on    Klikitat    In- 
dians    350 

Monache  basket  work 411 

Moquelumnan  designs 207 

Moravian  basketry  border no 

Mortuary  baskets,  ancient 239 

customs ,  use  of  basketry  in .    239 

Mosaic  effects  in  basketry 142 

elements  in  decorating  bas- 
ketry     141 

Mounting  the  loom 60 

Mud  shoe  of  Klamath  Indians .  .      46 
Murdoch,  John,  on  Eskimo  bas- 
ketry     298 

Muskemoots,   or  hunting  bags, 

weaving   in 280 

Nass  Indian  basketry 331 

Natural  materials  in  ornament- 
ing basketry 163 

Navaho  Indian  basket  plaque.  .    227 

basketry 469,  470 

baskets   for  religious   cere- 
monies     247 

dyes 169 

Nelson,  E.  W.,  on  Alaskan  bas- 
ket making 303 

New  England  Indians,  old  bas- 
ket work  of 276 

Mexico,  Zuni  pueblos 449 


Nez  Perc6  Indian  basketry.  .360,  361 

blankets 360 

Nikari   karu   Indian   pegalls  or 

packalls 488 

Nootka  basketry 331 

Nozi  (Yanan)  Indian  designs . .  .    207 

Nutka  Indian  basketry 333~335 

overlaying 335 

Ohio,     ancient    basketry    from 

mound  in 294 

charred  fabrics  from 282 

Ojibwa  Indian  coiled  basketry.  .    276 

symbolism 179 

twined  wallet 286 

Openwork  weaving 92 

Oraibi   Indian,  ancient  baskets 

of 453.4S6 

Oregon-California  basket  region, 

basketry  of 363,  402 

Oregon,    old    feathered   baskets 

from 372 

tribes,  hazel  stalks  in  bas- 
ketry       53 

Ornamentation,  dyeing  in  bas- 
ketry     167 

false    embroidery    on    bas- 
ketry     172 

feather- work,    beads,    etc., 

on  basketry 175 

imbrication  on  basketry.  .  .    174 
natural  materials  of,  in  bas- 
ketry     163 

on  basketry 131 

overlaying  in  basketry.  ...    170 
through  color  on  basketry.    161 
Owen,  C.  L.,  basketry  used  in 
storage 237 

Paints  for  coloring  baskets 17 

Paiute  Indian  basket  bottles.  .  .    251 

basketry 436-441 

coloring  in 412,413 

simple  coil  border 124 

twined  basket,  border  on.  .    114 
Palmer,  Edward,  reference  to.  20,  473 

Panama  hat,  so-called 492 

Panamint  Indian  basketry.  .407-412 
Papago  Indian  basket  making.  .    472 

carrying  frame 220 

Paressi  Indian  carrying  basket .  .   488 
Pegalls,  or  carrying  baskets.  .  .  .   487 
Pepper,  George  H.,  on  the  an- 
cient basket  makers 444 

Peru,  Ancon,  cemeteries  of,  bas- 
ketry found  in 495,  496 

desert  region  of,  preserva- 
tive of  textiles 240 

southern,  twined  carrying- 
frame 497 


526 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Peruvian  basketry 494,  495 

modern  coiled  basketry.  ...    500 
workbasket,  ancient,  from.   497 

Pima  basketmaker 480 

Indian  basket  boat 219 

.  basketry 472-480 

carrying  frame 153 

child's  carrying  basket.  .   474 
Pit  River  Indian  basketry.  .395,  396 

designs 207 

Plants,  leaves  of,  used  in  bas- 
ketry       47 

used  in  basketry,  by  F.  V. 

Coville 19 

list   prepared   by   V.    K. 

.  .  .  Chesnut 367 

coloring,  list  of 177 

Polygonal   elements   in    decora- 
tion of  basketry 159 

Porno  Indian  acorn  mush  maker, 

outfit 235 

basketry 380,  390 

borders in 

classification  of 384 

materials  for,  list.  ..  .381,  382 

plants  used  in 367 

symbols 202—204 

colors    having    significance 

with 202 

gift  basket 247 

milling  baskets 235 

Potsherds   from   State   of   New 

York 282 

showing  textile  impressions .   285 
Potter's  art,  use  of  basketry  in 

relation  to 240 

Pottery,      basketry      preserved 

by 269,  286 

textile  markings  on 281 

Powell,  J.  W.,  collections 434 

Preparing  materials  for  basket 

making 44,  47 

Preservation  of  baskets 503 

Processes  in  basket  making.  .  .44,  54 
Pueblo    and    Shoshonean    bas- 
ketry    432 

basketmaker 445 

basketry,  ancient.  .450,  457,  460 

symbolism 209 

Purdy,     Carl,    classification    of 

Porno  basket  work 384 

interpretations    of    Porno 

symbols 205 

on  unspoiled  art  in  north- 
western California 9 

vocabulary  of  symbols  on 
Porno  basketry 204 

Quinaielt  Indian  basketry 356 

wallet .in 


Ray,  P.  H.,  collections  of  bas- 
ketry   296 

Receptacle,  use  of  basketry  as  a .  242 
Rectangles  or  squares  in  decora- 
tion of  basketry 155 

Ree  Indian  coiled  gambling  bas- 
kets   278 

Regions,  basketry,  in  America.  .  4,  5 
Religion,  use  of  basketry  in.  ...  244 
Rhomboidal   figures  in   decora- 
tion of  basketry 157 

Rod    and    welt    foundation    in 

coiled  work 95 

Roots,  use  of,  in  basketry 45,  46 

Roth,  H.  Ling,  information  from  485 
Round  Valley  basketry,  plants 

used  in 367 

fine  coiled  basket,  making 

of 389 

Indian  basketry 377,  378 

Rust,  Horatio  N.,  on  mortuary 

baskets 240 

Salish  imbricated  ware 342 

of  British  Columbia 150 

Washington 180 

symbolism 193 

Salish  Indian  basketry,  borders 


designs  on. 


179, 180 

types  of -335.337 

San  Martin  Mountains,  Califor- 
nia, ancient  cave  baskets 429 

Sandals,  basket  makers' 445 

basketry 223 

Santa  Barbara  basketmakers .  .   414 

baskets,  decoration 406 

Shackelford,  Mrs.  R.  S.,  informa- 
tion from 350 

Shahaptian  Indian  basketry  .346,  360 

Shapes  of  baskets 135,  139 

Shards,  facts  preserved  by 242 

Shasta  Indian  basketry 395 

Shoshonean    and    Pueblo    bas- 
ketry      432 

basketry 409 

Shushwap  Indian  basketry.  .  .  .    345 
Sia  Indian  coiled  basket,  border 

of 126 

pueblo  of,  basketry 447 

Sieve  basket 232 

Sikyatki  basketrj' 460 

Simmon,     T.,     quotation    from 

report  of 349 

Simms,  G.  C.,  on  Apache- Yuma 

basketry 472 

Single-rod  foundation 92 

Sioux,  symbolism  of 179 

Skokomish  Indians,  twined  wal- 
lets of 358 


INDEX 


527 


PAGE 

Smith,  Harlan  I.,  on  twined  bas- 
ketry in  the  eastern  region ...  288 

Smith,  John,  quoted 232 

Social  life,  use  of  basketry  in.  .  .  247 
South     America,    basketry     of, 

southern  limit 491 

symbolism  on 210,211 

South    America,   basketry   sub- 
areas 486 

South  and  Middle  America, 

basketry  of 257,  481 

Southern  Indian  basketry,  deco- 
ration on 271 

Splint  and  two-rod  foundations.  96 

foundation 99 

Squares  or  rectangles  in  decora- 
tion of  basketry 155 

Steinen,  Carl  von  den,  on  Bra- 
zilian baskets 488 

Stems,  use  of,  in  basketry 46 

Stevens,     Isaac     L.,     quotation 

from 348 

Stevenson,  James,  quoted 446 

Storage  basket,  Mohave 237 

Strachey,  quoted 232 

Structure  and  form  in  basketry.  133 
Subdivisions  of  American  bas- 
ketry .• 4 

Sun  basket,  Yuki  Indian 200 

Sweet  grass  for  basket  making.  .  50 

Symbolism,  basketry 178 

classes  of  objects  and  phe- 
nomena represented  ....  180 

ethnic 187 

identifications  of    189 

Symbolism,    on    Hupa    bas- 
ketry   375.376 

Maidu  basketry 199,  400 

Porno  basketry 204 

Symbolism,  points  of  view  from 

which  it  may  be  studied.  183 

Professor  Farrand's  plates.  193 

technic  of,  illustrated 205 

Tarahumara  Indian  basketry.  .    484 
Techahet    Indian   basket    mak- 
ing   422,424 

Technic  in  basketry,  types  of .  .        6 

Tee-twined  weaving 76 

Teit,     James,     on     Thompson 

River  Indians 193,  340 

Tejon  basket  work 413 

coiled  baskets 416 

Tepeguanos   Indian   basketry.  .   484 
Textile    markings    on    pottery, 

classes  of 281 

Thompson,  A.  H.,  information 

as  to  Ute  material .  .' 434 

Thompson    River    Indian    bas- 
ketry   340,  341 


PAGE 

Thompson    River    Indian    bas- 
ketry,   false    embroidery 

on 174 

ornamentation  on    175 

Thompson  River  Indians,  list  of 

symbols  on  baskets  of 193 

Thompson  River  Indians,  weav- 
ing of  blankets  by  basketry 

processes 341 

Three-rod  foundation  in  coiled 

work 97 

strand  braid 80 

strand  twined  weaving. .  .  .  78,  80 
Tillamuk  Indian  twined  wallet .  .   358 

Tinn6  Indian  basketry 

128, 130, 298,  300 

Tlaxcala  Indian  basketry  .  .  .482,  483 
Tlinkit  Indian  basket-makers. .  . 

54,68,323 

basketry 317 

borders 115,  117,  118,  122 

false  embroidery  in 322 

styles  of  weaves  in 318 

symbolism 179, 189 

Tonto  Indian  Basketry 462 

Tools  used  by  basket  makers.  .54,  55 
Tozier,  D.  F.,  on  Makah  weavers    336 

Trapping,  use  of  basketry  in 248 

Triangles  in  decoration  of  bas- 
ketry     158 

Tribes,  basket  making,  list  of.  .    260 

Tsimshian  Indian  basketry 331 

Tulare  and  Kern  basketry.  .403-420 

decoration  on 151,411 

Twana  Indians,  implements  used 

by  in  basket  making 53 

Twill,  or  tweel  weaving 58-61 

Twilled  basketry,  canes  for.  ...      51 
Southern  tribes,  detail  of .  .    290 
Twilled     matting,      ancient, 

Petit  Anse  Island.  .  .  .  294,  295 
or   diagonal    technic,    in 

basketry 293,  294 

ware,  ancient,  in  Arizona.  .   460 

weaving,  borders  on 107 

decoration  of 145,  146 

how  produced 60,  61 

in  ancient  eastern  North 

America 284 

Twined  basket,  Tlinkit  Indian, 

process  of  making 55 

Twined  basketry  terms no 

baskets,    false    embroidery 

in 174 

baskets,     plain     twined 

weave,  decoration  on. .146,  147 
Twined  wallet,  Ojibwa  Indians.  286 
Twined  weaving,  border  on.  ...  no 

decoration 145,  146 

diagonal 71 


528 


INDEX 


PACK 

Twined       weaving,       different 

structures    in 69 

Hopi  Indian  type 84 

lattice 75 

plain 69 

position  of  weaver 68 

prehistoric,  where  common .    284 

symbolism 186 

three-strand 78 

wrapped 72,  73 

Two-rod  and  splint  foundation 
in  coiled  basketry 94,  96 

Umatilla  Indian  baskets,  twined 
weaving 362 

Upper  Yukon  River,  birch-bark 
tray,  border 129 

Uses  of  basketry 213 

Ute  Indian  basketry ,  .   434 

mortuary  uses  of vi 

Ute  Indian  water-tight  vessel .  .71,72 

Varieties  of  basketry ,  ethnic.  ...    255 
Vocabulary  of  basketry 10 

Wakashan  Indian  basketry...33i,  332 

Walapai  Indian  basketry 470,  471 

dyes 170 

Walla    Walla    Indian    women's 

hats 362 

War  and  defense,  use  of  basketry 

in 222 

Warrau  Indian  carrying  basket  .   490 
Wasco  Indian  twined  wallets.  .   363 
Washington,  imbricated  bas- 
ketry of 90,  347 

or      southern      imbricated 

ware 346 

Washoe  Indian  basketry.  .  .  .400,  401 
Water,  use  of  basketry  in  carry- 
ing      249 

Water-tight    basketry 18,  104 

vessels,  in  basketry 71,  72 

Wattled  work,  traces  of 285 

Weaving  baskets,  laying  founda- 
tion for " 82 

Weaving,  plain 59,  60 

tools  used  in 54 

Wedding  basket,  Porno 247 


PAGE 

White  Mountain  Apache  basket 

making 463,  464 

Whittemore,  Isaac  T.,  quoted.  .    474 

Wickerwork,  basketry 135,136 

ancient,  Arizona 458,  459 

border  of 46 

decoration 145,  146 

from  cave  in  Kentucky  ....    294 

in  soft  materials 283 

symbolism  on   185 

Wikchumni  Indian  grasshopper 

basket 420 

Wilcomb,     C.     P.,    information 

from 411 

Wilkie,  Miss  Harriet  C.,  informa- 
tion from 51 

Willoughby,  C.  C.,  on  ancient 
ware,  San  Martin  Moun- 
tains, California 429 

coiled  ware  in  the  eastern 

region 276 

old  Nutka  hats 333~335 

Willoughby,  Charles,  report  by 

as  to  Quinaielt  basketry 356 

Win  tun  Indian  basketry 397 

designs  on  basketry 206 

Woven  basketry 56 

kinds  of 6 

Wrapped  twined  weaving 72 

work,  basketry 65 

Yakima  Indian  imbricated  bas- 
ket     351 

Yakutat  Bay  basket  weavers.  .    168 
Yanan  or  Nozi  basketry  ....  207,  398 

Yaqui  Indian  basketry 483,  484 

in  ceremonies 247 

Yuki  Indian  sun  basket 200,  201 

Yukon  River  birch  tray,  border 

on 128 

Yuman  Indian  tribes,  basketry 
of ".   430 

Zuni  Indian  basketry,    ancient 

447-449 

coiled  basket  jar 450 

wickerwork,  border  on.  107-109 
wrapped  border 113,114