374 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



evolution of the artist's studio. Tlie materials which she gathered 

 long ago with nuich pains, and has been hoarding up, are within easy 

 reach. Her hands and her teeth are both available in her work, aided 

 by only a small supply of tools. A number of Indian women at work 

 will be seen in ditt'erent connections throughout this paper. 



IMate 120 shows Caroline Masta, an Abenaki Indian woman from 

 Pierreville, Canada, seated in her humble laboratory at Belmar, New 

 Jersey. Her materials are of black ash {Fraxmus n i</r<() and sweet grass 

 [Savd.stanti i)d(>v<it(i). The former has been worked out by machiner}" 

 in Canada, and is piltnl up around her; the latter is gathered and 

 braided by her relatives, and sent to her all ready for the last step 

 in maimfacture. This Indian woman conducts a thriving business, 

 not being able to make up ware as fast as there is demand for it. 

 Specimens of her work are shown in Plate 119, photographed })v 

 Herbert B. Rowland. 



To illustrate more fully the survival of the old art in the new era, 

 Plate \'1\ represents three Chippewa women near Saginaw. Michigan, 

 making splint baskets. They are seated no longer in the midst of 

 wretchedness, but in an apple orchard. The clothesline and the recep- 

 tacles tilled with fruit mark the changed life. It will l)e noticed, also, 

 that the woman on the left is us^ing for her splints a gauge set with 

 metal blades. Indeed, the broad strips lying on the ground were 

 worked out by machinery. Checkerwork and wickerwork are the 

 onl}' forms of technic practiced by these Chippewas. It will not be 

 assumed l)y anyone that the improvement in environment has i-c 

 dounded to the benetit of the savage art. The baskets are the com- 

 mon frame ware, and often the best of them bear no comparison in 

 retinement with the work of their most savage sisters on the west 

 coast. Photographed by Harlan I. Smith. 



The acme of the northern Algonkin weaving is in twilled matting. 

 The operation, technically, is just on the border between free-hand 

 plaiting :ind loom work. Plate 122 is a mat plaited ))y a Chippewa 

 squaw% about 50 years old, at Grand Marais, Minnesota. It is of cedar 

 bast made in strips a quarter of an inch wide, and is in three colors — 

 one the natural tinge of the material and the other two dyed. The 

 interesting features are, first, that the weaving is done from below 

 upward, as in the Haida basketry and in the work carried on by 

 Virginia Indians in the days of John Smith. 



A small rod or stiff cord of bark is suspended by means of eight 

 loops from a pole resting oii two forked sticks. This is to giVe free 

 motion to the womaivs hands. Over this the warp strings are sus- 

 pended freely. The Chilkat blanket weaver, also, as will be seen, has 

 no other machiner3^ For a few rows the weaving is simple checker- 

 work of the plainest kind, and then begins a series of twilled patterns 

 over two and under two. But even this simplest technic so lends 



