254 THE PATTERNS ON THE MATS. 



cribed in the trip to Fort Rupert. They use 

 lodges, or in other words, conical tents, when 

 fishing and moving from place to place, during 

 the summer; these lodges generally consist of 

 poles covered with mats. The Sumass and 

 Chilukweyuk Indians frequently use rush mats ; 

 the rushes are harvested, and brought from lono; 



7 o O 



distances, then carefully dried in the sun ; when 

 dry they are sewn together with long needles 

 made of hard wood varying in length from six 

 feet to four inches, threaded with cord twisted 

 from the smaller rushes; mats thus made are 

 perfectly rain-proof. The coast Indians usually 

 cover their summer lodges with mats made from 

 the inner bark of the Cedar (Thuja gigantea}. 

 These mats are platted together and exactly 

 resemble bas, or matting, as it is usually called. 



In platting the bark they manage to produce 

 very beautiful patterns to ornament their mats ; 

 and as different tribes adopt each a pattern of its 

 own, an Indian can readily tell to which tribe any 

 particular mat belonged. Specimens of the rush 

 and cedar bark mats are in the Indian collec- 

 tion of the British Museum, brought home by 

 myself. 



The inland tribes, as a rule, live winter and 

 summer in lodges ; some of the poorer tribes use 



