ABORIGINAL AMERICAN BASKETRY. 299 



decoration in brown and black how the rhonil) and triang-le cooperate 

 to produce regular and pleasino- decoration. The lower figure is a 

 better illustration of the use of narrow parallelograms, combined in 

 lines concentric and radial, to give expression to phenomena such as 

 lightning. 



Plate 55 is an imbricated box from the Fraser River country, in 

 British Columbia. Excepting the parallel bands, the front and body 

 of the basket are covered with white and dark-brown triangles, no other 

 elementary geometric figure being introduced. Each triangle is an 

 example of the limitations before mentioned, which practically cut the 

 basket maker oti' from free-hand drawing. The geometricians say that 

 a circle is a polj^gon with an infinite number of sides. With them all 

 curved lines resolve themselves into the rectilinear. The basket maker 

 does not stop there, but resolves rectilinear forms into still minuter 

 rectilinear forms of another class. The mosaic elements on the basket 

 are most regular squares of imbrication. There is for her no other 

 way to make a triangle. This specimen is in the collection of 

 F. Harvey. 



(e) Polygonal elements.— ^\\^i has been said of the triangle is also 

 true of polygonal figures — that is, of those having more than four 

 sides. These figures may be produced in the texture of baskets in 

 openwork. The}' are also ])rought about by uniting difl^erent forms of 

 checks or stitches in the same piece of work. On the hats of the Haida 

 Indians and on twined work of the Pacific coast excellent diaper pat- 

 terns are woven. In closely packed basketry the individual stitches 

 assume the form of the hexagon, after the manner of the bee's cell. 

 On matting, wallets, bags — that is, on flat surfaces — all of the geomet- 

 ric figures before mentioned having straight borders occur. In many 

 rhombs the ends are cut off ]jy boundary lines of bands and turned 

 into hexagons. 



However, as soon as basketry begins to assume curved outlines, 

 borders that would be straight on a flat surface are bent in one or 

 more directions. The effect of this, both in the single mosaic element 

 and in the larger designs, is to change the figure from a hard outline 

 to one that is far more graceful. In a coiled basket the foundation 

 coil is curved horizontally, but the stitches cross these at right 

 angles. In a coiled bowl with globose bottom there are three sets 

 of curves with different radii — the horizontal curve of the founda- 

 tion, the curve of the pattern, and the vertical curves of the stitches. 

 The shapes of polygons that may be worked on the surface of 

 basketry are legion. The designs which may be made out of these 

 are even more numerous. It will be possible to illustrate only a 

 limited number of them, but the reader may be pleased to turn from 

 plate to plate in the decorations on the surface of basketry in the 

 various chapters to see how versatile the Indian woman's mind was in 



