ABORIGINAL AMERICAN BASKETRY. 



381 



it was not the common, careless weaving, but the elegant desions, as 

 will be seen in the plates. 



The textile markings on potter}^, ancient and modern, arc of live 

 classes: 



1. Impressions on the surface, made l)y rigid basketry, used in 

 molding and modeling. 



2. Impressions of pliable fal)rics on the soft clay. 



3. Impressions of woven textures used over the hand or on a 

 modeling or malleating implement. 



4. Impressions of cords wrapped about modeling or malleating 

 paddles or rocking tools. 



5. Impressions of bits of cords or other textile luiits, singly or in 

 groups, applied for ornament only, and so arranged as to give textile- 

 like patterns." 



Fig. 117. 

 wickerwcirk from cave is kentucky. 



After W. H. Hulmos. 



If the reader will turn to the classification of l»asket-making meth- 

 ods (p. 10(1), it will l>e noticed that many of these are to bo found in 

 the ancient basket ware impressed on pottery ])y the eastern Indians. 

 Referring to Professor Holmes's paper, openwork checker weaving is 

 very rare among impressions on chiy. Foster illustrates one example 

 on pottery from a mound on Great Miami River, Hiitler County, Ohio. 

 Checkerwork of the close tvpe, on the other hand, was practiced in 

 nearly all the Atlantic States, upon the testimony of pottery fragments. 



From potsherds found in the State of New York, closely packed 

 checkerwoi'k patterns have been copied. Charred fabrics from 

 mounds in Ohio reveal tlie coarsest kinds of oV)Ii(jue checker weaving. 

 Holmes illustrates an example in which the oblique work imitates 

 mat plaiting without a frame, worked from a corner. The selvage 

 and the weft cross the texture obliquely.'^ 



«\V. H. Holmes, American Anthropologist (N. S.), Ill, 1901, pp. 397-408. 



b See Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890, pi. vii, tig. c. 



