no. 1631. VOCABULARY OF MALAYSIAN BASKETWORK— MASON. 5 



framework and the fixed backpad make it proper to --peak of sides. 

 (See Plate III.) 



Bajus. — In Nias, jackets made of bark cloth, which see. 



Bamboo skin. — The outer skin of young bamboo stems, when 

 peeled off and properly cured, is used like spathe and bast for making 

 hats and for other smooth textures. 



Bamboo work. — To the natives of Malaysia, bamboo stems serve 

 the double use of receptacles and as the basis and material for much 

 basketry technic. Bamboo is (he common name for the large tree-like 

 grasses belonging to the genus Bambusa, of which more than thirty 

 species are known. Some send up canes from their rhizomes 50 to 60 

 feet high in a single season. In others, one of the hollow internodes 

 may reach a foot in diameter and more than 3 feet in length. The 

 bamboo canes are employed for no end of uses in Malaysia, both 

 whole and split. Masts, sails, mats, roofs, walls, floors, furniture, and 

 the finest baskets are made from stems, leaves, and finely-shredded 

 outer skin. 



Ba/'k cloth. — The bast, or inner bark, of Ficus bicuspis and other 

 exogens is beaten into tapa, narrow strips of which form the harness 

 for attaching the burden basket to the body of the carrier. 



Bar],- work. — The various uses of bark in the basket-making art — 

 outer bark and inner bark of exogens, both natural and textilized. 

 The large bracts of leaves and spathes of flowers and the green skin 

 of bamboo stems do most excellent service in the making and fitting 

 of receptacles. (See Tapa.) These substances are rounded with the 

 grain as they grew on the plant or across the grain and wrapped 

 about a mold. They are cut into large pieces, to be made into hats or 

 into strips to be woven. (See Plate I.) 



Basketwork. — The basket, in Malaysia as elsewhere, is a receptacle 

 and a vehicle. The myriad utensils there performing these functions 

 go by the general name of basketry. The numberless varieties of 

 loomless handicrafts in flexile materials to be found in and on bas- 

 kets may be grouped under the word "basketwork." These same 

 processes in other associations may bear different names. In mate- 

 rials. Malaysian peoples would have barkwork, canework. leaf work'. 

 rootwork, spathework, and stem work. Or, if necessary, one could 

 speak of bamboo work, " ejoo " work (meaning the long, black, tough 

 hairs on the wine palm), palm-leaf work, pandanus work, rattan 

 work, and as many more kinds as there might be substances fur- 

 nishing the chief material. 



In all these operations there is the attempt to produce a utensil or 

 to imitate its processes on or in something else. Looked at from the 

 naturalist's point of view, all the things here in mind have structures 

 and functions, and may be studied as specimens for scientific investi- 

 gation. In structure, the objects are made of flexile, or flexible mate- 



