302 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



materials from which the structure is made up. In the Aleutian 

 Islands the ware is in the color of the wild grass stalks, unripe and 

 ripe; farther south the spruce root decides the shade, and in British 

 Columbia cedar root and bast and bark give a brown or white appear- 

 ance to the ware. In eastern Canada ash splints are white and brown; 

 so are the baskets made therefrom, but the cane of the Southern States 

 has a glossy yellow-green surface, and that predominates in Cherokee 

 and Choctaw ware. 



Among the bewildering varieties of baskets between British Colum- 

 bia and Mexico the foundation colors will be decided by that of the 

 Indian hemp, spruce and cedar root, bulrushes, cattail stems, shoots 

 of willow and rhus, roots of sedges and agave, roots of yucca, and 

 so on. 



In this connection it must not be overlooked that these same 

 materials are not lacking in responsiveness to the severest a?sthetic 

 demands of the artist. The Abenaki woman knows that last year's 

 growth of black ash is almost as white as snow, while the rings of 

 growth farther in are brown. She therefore makes warp of one and 

 weft of the other, or bands of them alternately, much to the embel- 

 lishment of the surface. The commonest iishwoman on the coast of 

 British Columliia will show you that cedar root has three colors — that 

 of the woody portion, the brown of the outer bark, and the newest 

 wood nearest to the bark. She also knows how to overlay with 

 grasses. The California cercis, or red bud, has a prettj' reddish- 

 brown bark, but the wood inside is pure white. Remarkable sug- 

 gestiveness to a wide-awake mind exists in the 3'ucca leaf of the 

 Southwest, which may be used in basketry, whole or split. The out- 

 side is mottled green in a number of shades, while the inside is white. 

 The leaf of the yucca {Yucca arborescens) is green, the root a reddish 

 brown. 



Holmes calls attention to the possibilities of aesthetic effects in a 

 single color shown in a workbasket from the ancient cemetery of 

 Ancon, Peru, produced through variety in the management of diag- 

 onal weaving. There will be found on all these workbaskets (1) ordi- 

 nary diagonal weaving, over and under two or three or more; (2) bands 

 of greater or less width formed b}^ haying a piece of wood or cane 

 between warp and weft and then continuing the weaving on the other 

 side; (3) the forming of hinges and ridges by twining in each weft 

 element about two or three warps before continuing the weaving. 

 The herringbone effects are pi'oduced by leaving in front alternately 

 warp and weft in the padded bands. If the number of rows of com- 

 mon diagonal weaving is even, a herringbone effect is seen; if odd, the 

 checks in the two rows will be parallel. In Mexico and Central 

 America the valuable 3' uccas give color to all textiles, as do the palm 

 leaves in South America. (See figs. 207-209.) 



