364 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



harmonize ethnology and technology. There are, notwithstanding, 

 certain general effects which may be associated with definite peoples. 



1. In the Eastern province the prevailing families were Algonquian, 

 lro(|uoian, Muskhogean, Caddoan, and a few remnants of smaller 

 ones, in some instances numbering at present less than a hundred p*er- 

 sons. The Siouan and other buffalo-hunting tribes on the plains will 

 be omitted because the hide of the slain animals furnished them with 

 receptacles as well as other conveniences of life. The basket makers 

 in their territor}- belong elsewhere. 



2. In the Alaskan province an interesting state of affairs existed 

 with reference to the matter here investigated. In the interior of the 

 peninsula are the Athapascan (or Tinne) tribes. Around the coast 

 line dwell members of the Eskimauan family, having entirely different 

 materials, workmanship, and technical processes. It will be seen 

 later that the Eskimo as a whole are not skillful basket makers. There 

 has been contact, however, between the two linguistic families. The 

 Aleutian peoples are ver}^ different in this art from the Eskimo, their 

 ware being among the most highly admired on the continent. In 

 southeastern Alaska the Koloschan family are found, who are different 

 from the Athapascans in the interior of the peninsula in that they do 

 not make coiled basketry at all. The same is true of the Haida or 

 Skittagetan family, in the Queen Charlotte Archipelago. 



3. In the Frazer-Columbia province, including the drainage of these 

 great rivers, the Salishan family, the Wakashan, the Shahaptian, and 

 the Chinookan are the present basket-making families. As in the 

 Siouan areas, so here a few small fragments or surviv^als till in the 

 gaps and waste places, but contribute little to the technical processes 

 involved. In the discussion of basketry in this province a special 

 characteristic will be brought out. 



4. The Calif oi'uia province, including also southern Oregon, is the 

 most mixed of all in its ethnology. Many stocks of people whose 

 languages are not known elsewhere, and many fragments of stocks 

 that have a larger existence in other parts of America, are wedged 

 into the mountain valleys and drainages of the streams. Nature has 

 been most lavish here in her materials, and the tinest textile plants for 

 making baskets are to he found in California. The diversity of technic 

 is ahnost as great as that of language. Few styles of weaving or coil- 

 ing exist that do not have their representatives among this intermin- 

 able labyrinth of valleys. 



5. The Desert, or Interior province, is occupied in its northern 

 portion l)y the great Shoshonean family, which extends from the 

 forty-ninth parallel to Costa Rica, pushes its way over the Rocky 

 Mountains into the Mississippi drainage and across southern California 

 to the Santa Barbara .islands on the Pacific coast, giving and receiving 

 technical suggestions in its way. In the southern portion of this 



