ABORIGINAL AMEBIC A.N BASKETRY. 



307 



with sinew .shredded and mixed in glue. In a siniihir way, as though 

 one had suggested the other, the}^ line the back of the weft strands 

 with bright straw. It is not glued, since the Aviniving would hold it 

 in place. When the llupa reveals the straw side of the strand at ever}' 

 half turn, she covers the surface of her basket with straw color which 

 turns to gold with age. The overlaying of only one of the two weft 

 strands gives a freckled ett'ect on the surface. In some of the tribes 

 the patttn-n does not show on the inside. 



This will ]>e a good place in which t(j mention a kind of overlaj'ing 

 common in countries where the cane abounds. The outside of the 

 stem is glossy and may be dyed. The inside is spongy and unat- 

 ti-active. By laying two strips together, so that the smooth surface 

 may be outward, there would l)e reall}' a double fabric with two 

 gloss V surfaces. The southern Indians also fre(juently passed only 

 one of the pair of splints over or under weaving. 



Fig. 101 shows a style of wa-apping done in Mexico City." The illus- 

 tration is from a hand wallet. 

 The body of the checker 

 weaving is in hard, flattened 

 straws of vai'ving shades. 

 Each warp straw is wrapped 

 with two flllets of thin mate- 

 rial in darker color so as to 

 leave small scpiares or^ the sur- 

 face set diagonally. When 

 the plain weft is run among 

 the warp elements, the sur- 

 face of the fabric is covered 

 with larger and smaller 

 squares in white set in tri- 

 angles of darker material. The white squares run diagonally across 

 the surface. There are endless variations produced by this wrapping- 

 added to the body of the fal)ric. 



This overlaying must not be confounded with the many tricks which 

 cunning women play with the strands of the regular twined weaving, 

 which are frequently of brilliant straws of squaw grass and other 

 pretty materials. (See Plates 110, 161, 170, 177 and 17S.) 



Plate 06 represents twined basketry of the Klamath River Indians 

 of various types, and is here introduced for the purpose of showing- 

 how the tough weaving material may be overlaid with basketry and 

 other colored tilaments so as to conceal the foundation both outside 

 and inside. It has been shown in the chapter on processes, however, 

 that the exposure of the overlaying material need not occur on the 



Fig. 101. 

 wrapping weft fillets with parkep. ones. 



After W. H. Holmes. 



« W. H , Holmes, Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1888, p. 227, fi^ 



330. 



