Baskffs frojit Australia. 



87 



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Australian Baskets. — All tlirougli thi.s account of Hawaiian basket and mat 

 weaving illustrations have been drawn from other Polynesian sources, nor has that 

 been the limit, for Micronesian and Papuan sources have also been freely taxed in 

 order that perchance the geographical origin of certain forms or methods might be 

 indicated : and for this it seems as important to show the work of tribes within the 

 Pacific area, even when that work appears widely divergent from that forming the basis 

 of this treatise. If we had a fairly complete colledlion of Pacific basketry, such as this 



Museum is striving to gather, much 

 might be gleaned of the traces of ancient 

 intercourse, if not of common origin, of 

 the tribes whose descendants are now 

 verging toward extinAion on the islands 

 of the Pacific. This would be truer of 

 baskets than of mats, for the latter have 

 always been deemed of greater value as 

 property, and have always been favorite 

 obje^ls of barter or of plunder. Reference 

 has already been made to the care be- 

 stowed by the old Samoans on their choice 

 mats and the great length of time during 

 which they have been preserved. The 

 baskets seem to have been made under a 

 less favoring star, and however useful, 

 however ornamental they may have been, 

 they certainly have not stood so high in 

 the estimation of their makers or owners as have the mats. Perhaps enough of the 

 human has clung to them from the busy fingers of their makers to impart to the sense- 

 less intertwined and knotted strips the usual human lot, where the quietly usefiil people 

 are, when dead, soon forgotten, while the brazen warriors or the astute politicians are 

 preserved in marble or bronze or aere perennms in the pages of history. 



The coiled form of basket, so common among the Amerinds, is also found spo- 

 radically in the Pacific regions, as at Fiji, New Britain, New Guinea, and here in 

 Australia. All the Australian coiled baskets that have come to my notice are knotted 

 coiled, that is, the thread that unites the adjoining circles of the coil are knotted be- 

 tween the coils, as shown plainly in Fig; 87, or perhaps better in the specimen in this 

 Museum given in Fig. 88. In all the foundation of the coil is some small fibre or 

 grass, to which I am unable to give a name, and the connedling thread has much the 

 appearance of rattan, and is perhaps from some vine allied to the Calanms. The best 



FIG. 87. COILED BASKET IN THE .\USTR.\I,IAN MUSEUM. 



