31)2 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902 



ATHAPASCAN COILED BASKETRY 



Perhaps no other family of American tribes has such a variety of 

 contacts with neighbors of different linguistic families and of limita- 

 tions in environments having little likeness to one another. This 

 northern branch of them, as Mill be seen in Father Morice's list," is in 

 touch along their southern border with Algonquian descendants of 

 Mound Builders on the Ohio, with birch-bark workers in northern 

 middle Canada, and with Pacilic coast tribes here and there. Some of 

 these were noted in speaking of Region 1, i>age 379, with illustrations. 

 Further on other contacts will be shown. The distril)ution of the 

 family is given by Powell on his linguistic map of North America.^ 



Here the Athapascans are in touch with Eskimo; indeed, most of 



the specimens of their ware 

 /K i MiiiWP SP'^'^X^'ft^fe^ shown were procured from the 



Fig. 127. 



coiled workbasket. 



Tinn(5 Indians, Alaska. 



Cat. No. 89801, U.S.N.M. Collected by P. H. Ray. 



ractice 

 mic in 

 ibes 

 of the interior of Alaska make 

 a very coarse coiled basket now 

 becoming common. Some of 

 the very old pieces have the 

 l)uttonhole stitch in the sewing. 

 In a collection of pieces no two will agree either in shape or composition. 

 The best of the ware is from near the Mackenzie mouth, where 

 dyed feathers are used for decoration. Some of the oldest specimens 

 in the National Museum entered in the first catalogue are coiled basket 

 trays of the Athapascan Indian tribes living in Fort Simpson at the 

 mouth of the Mackenzie River. Splints of willow and spruce root 

 are employed in the work and the ornamentation is meager, consisting 

 of stripes on the side, and borders in ([uilled work dyed in different 

 colors. These specimens vary from (> to 8 inches in diameter, and 

 were gathered ])y R. MacFarlane, B. R. Ross and W. L. Hardesty. 



Fig. 127 is a coiled basket jar of the Tinne Indians near Point 

 Barrow% Alaska. The specimen l)elongs to the single-rod type, in 

 which one rod or stem constitutes the foundation. The sewing is done 

 with split stems of willow, passing over the rod in progress and under 

 the one forming the coil underneath. The illustration here given of 

 this specimen is from Murdoch's paper on the Point Barrow Eskimo.'' 



« Transactions of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, IV, 1894, Pt. 1, No. 7. 



^ Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1891, p. 55. 



c Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892, pp. 326-327. 



