366 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



j^otten that the ideiis, utilitarian and artistic, in the minds of the man- 

 ufacturers themselves, serve to bestow special marks upon the work 

 of different tribes so as to give to them ethnic or national signiticance 

 under any circumstances. In the following chapters the typical forms 

 of the various families of Indians will be iUustrated. 



Were there no mixture of tribes it might be possible to state in 

 every case the maker of each specimen from the technic and the orna- 

 mentation, though this opinion must be held with reserve. Through- 

 out the entire continent the practice of capturing women was common; 

 in each case the stolen ones carried to their homes the processes they 

 had been familiar with in their native tribe. The Twana Indians on 

 Puget Sound practice ten different methods of basket making; the 

 Pomo Indians have eight processes; the Hopi Indians of Arizona have 

 at least live. It is well known that each one of these tribes belong to 

 synthetic families. In order to comprehend the extent of this rela- 

 tionship between the tribe and the art, the various basket-making 

 groups will be defined and the t3^pes of their work illustrated. (See 

 Plates 154, 155.) 



The mixing of basket work through the traveling about of women 

 is well illustrated in the story of Maria Narcissa, told by E. L. McLeod, 

 of Bakersffeld, California. Maria was born at San Gabriel mission 

 and brought up in Tejon Canyon. There she retained the knowledge 

 of her native speech and learned the dialects of the surrounding tribes. 

 She married an American, reared and educated a large family of chil- 

 dren, and is still living. On her testimony tribes from the north as 

 far up as Tule River would come down to Tejon for social and religious 

 purposes, hold great feasts and dances, and gamble on the gaming 

 plaques. Parties came longer journeys from San Fernando. San 

 Gabriel, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inez, and Mr. McLeod 

 finds undoubted evidences of these meetings in the technic and the deco- 

 rations on basketry. (See Plates 115-116.) 



From the Tule River country there came the beautiful flexible work, 

 an improvement on the Fresno ware. But the Tejon basketry 

 excelled, the pieces were better finished, there was more emulation, a 

 greater variety of patterns, showing the influence of both north and 

 south. 



There was trading of materials likewise, for you will see fine old 

 pieces from the caves on the Tejon with mission bottoms and Tejon 

 tops, also old specimens from caves in Santa Barbara County which 

 were made in Tejon. 



