ABOKIGINAL AMERICAN BASKETRY. 347 



IN GLEANING AND MILLING 



Gleaning- or harvesting, storing away, and milling, what a vast 

 number of men are nowadays employed in them. Women arc not 

 al)sent from them altogether in the United States and nothing is more 

 common in the Eastern Hemisphere than to sec harvest lields and all 

 activities associated with root and seed gathering thronged with them. 

 The industrv was almost solely hers in America. Baskets are named 

 for their part in these crafts. There are picking baskets, root baskets, 

 berry ])askets, and on to the list of acorns, fruits, seeds, and roots 

 without end. Carrying baskets arc universal, ))ut there are a great 

 many of them used by this set of workwomen, and it will ])e found 

 that special varieties have been devised for these pursuits. 



Also, as every other important invention calls for a host of subsidiary 

 devices, there must be wands for beating off seeds, sieves for separat- 

 ing grain from chaff', fans for the same purpose, roasting trays in 

 which the raw material is parched before grinding. Brooms are 

 made from l)askct liber, hoppers for the top of the millstone also, and 

 the open, generous ]>owls to hold meal. All this is ])efore the cooking- 

 processes are reached. If the meal is not to be used up at once, all thrifty 

 tribes had learned to store up vegetable supplies against the day of 

 need. The granary liasket was the rival of the pit and the wooden 

 crib. There must have been something retining about this entire 

 round of activities. In many of the baskets associated with them the 

 ornamentation is exquisite. The hunter and the fisherman had scant 

 encouragement to cultivate the {esthetic sense in their employments; 

 but nuts, seeds, grain, most fruits, and roots are clean. Even berries 

 when the}" stain do not soil the outer part of the receptacle, so the 

 Eraser River tril)es adorn the upper portion of the ])askets with beau- 

 tiful patterns. The lower part is left plain. The use of baskets in 

 the plant quest was well-nigh universal. The eastern Indians employed 

 the cane or split ash for their wicker or twilled baskets. As far as 

 the cane extended, even to Guiana and Brazil, this is true. The 

 ino'cnious cassava strainer belongs to this class. 



Plate 95 shows the domestic utensils of the upper Amazon tribes for 

 various household purposes. Palm leaf, out of which fiber is made; 

 the fiber itself, used in various forms of domestic utensils; baskets in 

 two types, twined and crossed warp weaving. The cassava strainer on 

 the left is in twined weaving, so that when the weights are taxed the 

 bag is increased in size and the water forced out of the cassava. The 

 specimen shown was collected for the U. S. National Museum by J. B. 

 Steere. 



Lewis H. Morgan writes" that in the art of basket work, in all its 

 varieties, the Iroquois Indian women also excel. Their baskets are 



« League of the Iroquois, 1851, j). 382, showing twined baskets. 



