42 



PROCEEDINGS OE THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



owing to the abundance of materials everywhere for such technic. It 

 may be divided into erect and oblique, plain and diagonal, and great 

 differences are possible through varying thickness, width, color, and 

 number in crossing. These in many examples produce artistic effects 

 of great beauty. (See Plates V, VI, and fig. 1.) 



4. Wicker is basket technic, in which rigid passive elements, or 

 stakes, are crossed regularly, over and under, by active elements that 

 are flexible. Rattan and like plants are specially adapted to wicker- 

 work, which in its coarest forms, such as game fences and fish weirs, 

 must have furnished the earliest types of basketwork. Wicker, in its 

 finest specimens, may be made ornate; it runs easily into twillwork 

 and twinework. (See Plates I, XVI, and figs. 5, 8.) 



5. Wrapped work includes all hand textiles in which the passive 

 parts are held together by a flexible active part which at regular 

 places is wrapped about them. I have elsewhere called this "bird- 

 cage " technic, re- 

 ferring to the wire 

 cages wherein the 

 stiff wires cross at 

 right angles and 

 the intersections 

 are wrapped about 

 with fine w i r e. 

 Many varieties of 

 the wrappedwork 

 exist in Malaysia, 

 and they will be 

 illustrated under 

 special examples. 



The passive parts are not always weft, but latticed foundations are 

 encircled by the active running up and down, in and out, like clinging 

 vines. (See figs. 40, 41.) 



6. Twinedwork includes those hand textiles in which the passive 

 parts, called " stakes " by English basket-makers, are held together 

 and in place by twine of two or more strands. The technic is called 

 2-strand, 3-strand, and so on, according to the number of strands in 

 the active part. Associated with twined work is braidwork, in which 

 the active elements are braided in and out among the passive, but 

 the appearance is quite the same. 



Twinedwork may be wicker or twilled, open or close, fine or coarse, 

 and by making one of its elements rigid it may be merged into 

 wrappedwork. On a basket the twinedwork may be continuous in one 

 direction from round to round, or the consecutive rounds may be 

 boustrophic. An openwork effect is secured by including alternate 

 pairs of stakes in going around. 



Fig. 38. — Finishing rnocEssEs on single-stem basket. 



