404 - REPORT OF NATIOISTAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



invited to the similarit}" of mound builder's work in the MississijDpi 

 Valle^r to ttie plajing- witli the warp of which the Aleuts were so fond. 

 Away down among the mummies of Peru are found relics of weav- 

 ing of precisely the same sort. 



Ornamentation is produced b}' what looks like darning- or whipping 

 one or more rows of colored grass after the body is formed. It is in 

 effect the false embroider}^ of the Tlinkits farther south. The worsted 

 patterns are woven into the texture and do not show at all on the 

 inside. (See fig. 10.) Another plan of attaching the ornamentation 

 is very ingenious, but not uncommon. Two strands of colored straw 

 are twined, and at every half turn one of the strands is hooked under 

 a twist on the body of the basket by a kind of "aresene" work or 

 false embroidery with twine. This ornament has a bold relief effect 

 on the outside and is not seen at all on the inside. 



The making of the beautiful twined ware is not new in these small 

 islands. Lisiansky" afiirms that the Aleuts made baskets called 

 " ishcats," in which they keep all their valuables. 



To begin with the eastern tribes, Catalogue No. 21i)2, in the 

 U. S. National Museum, is a twined wallet of the Aleuts (Eskimaun 

 famih^) on Kadiak Island, Alaska, Native name, Enakhtak. It is 

 made entirely of Topkhnaluk or wild rye {Ely mas). The lower stalks 

 are chosen because they become yellow through want of light. The 

 wallets are woven from the standing grass, generall}^ in July and 

 August, by the women, while engaged in curing salmon. In order to 

 secure uniformit}^ in texture the broader leaves are split. An ordinary 

 knife is used to cut the grass, but no other apparatus than nimble 

 fingers has to do with the manufacture. The twining is called agan- 

 khak. The Kadiak baskets are used chiefly in gathering berries and 

 also in straining a kind of wine made from them. This specimen was 

 collected l)y Lieut. G. T. Emmons, U. S. Nav}'. 



These wallet baskets are woven without ornamentation, or may ))c a 

 line or so near the mouth, often effected by introducing one or more 

 rows of black rags, the warp strands forming a heavy plaited rope-like 

 border, which permits carriage by means of cords through the open- 

 ings. In the Kadiak wallets the Tlinkit border is also imitated where 

 the warp ends are bent down and held by twined weaving. 



Catalogue No. 14978 in the U. 8. National Museum is a typical old 

 A.leut wallet. The cj'lindrical part is covered with meshes in diamond 

 pattern, shown in fig. 9, Plate 136. The ornamentation on the surface 

 is produced l)y false embroidery with strands of red, blue, and black 

 worsted. The continuous line between the open stripes is formed by 

 false whipping with a single thread of worsted on the outer stitches of 

 one of the twines of straw. The border is a complicated braid. 



a \"oyage Round the World, 1803-1806, London, 1814, p. 181. 



