258 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



George H. Pepper in Guide Leaflet No. 6 of the American Museum of 

 Natural History. It is called a "sifter," and was found among the 

 relics of the ancient basket makers of southeastern Utah. The outer 

 rows of coiling belong to the single-stick variety. On the rest of the 

 surface the binding material in passing around the foundation rods 

 makes a whole turn on itself between them. The basket is 9i inches 

 in diameter and 2 inches deep. 



WATER-TIGHT BASKETRY 



Basketry is rendered water-tight by closeness of texture and by 

 daubing with pitch or asphaltum. Both twined and coiled ware are 

 useful for this latter purpose. It is said of the mother of Moses that 

 she "took for him an ark [a boat-shaped basket] of bulrushes and 



Fig. 59. 

 fuegian coiled b.isket, and details. 



daubed it with slime and with pitch and put the child therein, and 

 she laid it in the flags by the river's brink." (Exodus ii, 3.) Now, 

 the Egyptians and other Hamites of our day make coiled basketrj^ of 

 type flg. 41 1; that is, with a foundation of shredded material sewed 

 with flnely split palm leaf. The foundation is quite thick, so that the 

 ware is strikingly like the Hopi plaques of the Middle Mesa. There is 

 no reason for believing that the ancient ware diflered from the modern. 

 In the Interior Basin also baskets are used for potter}^ by tribes that 

 are not sedentary. (See Plate 32.) 



Major J. W. Powell, during his topographical and geological sur- 

 vey of the valley of the Colorado River of the West, in company with 

 Prof. A. H. Thompson, made a collection of water-tight basket work 



