ABOKIGII^AL AMERICAN BASKETRY. 305 



myths in which the personcity of tlie dyestuli' would be the proniinent 

 characteristic. 



Plate iU shows twilled basket No. 76T7S, U.S.N.M., from the New 

 Orleans Centennial Commission. It is a basket of the Chetimacha 

 Indians of Louisiana made in split cane in the natural color and dyed. 

 The union of textile effects and the three colors — orange, l>lack. and 

 straw color-are most pleasing, the motiye being ellipsis and rhombs 

 made by the use of small squares and rectangles. The upper portion 

 of the ligure also shows how a diaper effect may be produced on the 

 surface b}" the lights and shades of the uncolored material. 



It is useless to tarry al)out thi^ eastern l)asket makers in search of 

 native dyes. There is no doubt of their haying possessed them. The 

 porcupine-quill w^orkers about the Great Lakes and all the way to the 

 Arctic circle are still adepts in the art. In the National Museum are 

 little wallets of bladder from Anderson River, Canada, each one tilled 

 with porcupine quills dyed in a separate color. 



The basket weavers of Yakutat Bay, in southeastern Alaska, color 

 their splints of spruce root from which they weave their twined Ixis- 

 ketry with dye from the willow. They scrape the roots of willow 

 and make a decoction in a wooden tul) in which they soak the spruce- 

 root splints. Their neighbors of the same linguistic family had a 

 more extensive laborator}' in color. For more than a hundred 3'ears 

 they were in contact with the Russians and from them obtained good 

 dye-stuffs and knowledge of processes. Many an old piece of their 

 basket ware, although it has stood hard use in all the years and in spite 

 of all, has grown more beautiful with age. 



Plate 65 shows two covered baskets of the Tlinkit Indians in twined 

 work which are inserted here for the purpose of exhibiting the influ- 

 ence of modern traffic. C»sar in his Commentaries speaks of the 

 Belgians as being the most manly of all the Gallic tribes, because mer- 

 chants less frequently went among them and sold them the things that 

 tended toward effeminating their minds. The Mercatores have also 

 been among the tribes of the Northwest. On the right-hand basket 

 even the bands that would show soiue little survival of the ancient wood 

 color have been dyed, while the red, yellow, black, and white shades 

 are in aniline. The form of these baskets is also borrowed from 

 civilization, and the handles in braided ware are not aboriginal. Cat. 

 Nos. 168^67, 168268. 



The wood of the alder, when freshly cut, saj^s Swan/* is soft and 

 white and easil}^ worked, but a short exposure to the air hardens and 

 turns it to a red color. The bark chew^ed and spit into a dish forms a 

 bright- red dj^e pigment of a permanent color, which is used for dyeing 



«The Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington, 1870, p. 43. 

 NAT MUS 1902 20 



