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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Their greatest manufacture was that of baskets ; they made 

 hundreds of them yearly, of all shapes and sizes. The larger ones 

 were woven from long, slender willows, the smaller from delicate 

 strips of the willow bark. Some were decorated with beads and 

 feathers, in others indescribable designs were worked with colored 



"Digger" Implements, from the Collection of 1)k. .Iewett, of Martsville. 



barks. The baskets that were made for cooking purposes were 

 water-tight. Meats, soup, and so forth, were boiled in them by 

 dropping in hot stones, replaced by others as fast as they cooled. 

 Mortars were also used in this way, as the direct heat of fire was 

 apt to break them. For frying meat, hot flat rocks were used. 

 Large cone-shaped baskets were made to transfer household 

 effects, gather food, and in general to carry. They were bound 

 on the back, fastened by a belt about the waist and by a band 

 from the top of the basket around the forehead. 



The maliala was invariably the burden-bearer : these great 

 baskets, loaded with all they could hold, were never strapped to 

 the back of the man ; he carried only his bow and arrow. Their 

 method of starting a fire was most skillful. Two round pieces of 

 hard wood were used, one tapered to a point at one end. These 

 were rubbed together between the hands until the friction pro- 

 duced a spark, which, thrown into a heap of fine, dry bark, pro- 

 duced fire almost instantly. I wondered how it could be done 



