ABORIGINAL AMERICAIST BASKETRY. 405 



A s<iuiir(' inch of this weave, enlaroed (see li<>-. IT), taken from the 

 part of tlu> t(>xtui-e where the rectangular nie.sh(>s or phiin work pass 

 into the lo/cnge-shaiM'd in(\shes, will show the peculiar method of sepa- 

 rating tiic wai'p threads and working the halves alternately to the right 

 and to th(> left.' In tlu^ bottom row the pairs of warp straws ar(^ per- 

 pendicular and gathered into the twined weaving so as to produce rec- 

 tangular spaces. All the rows above this are in the pattern luu'o 

 described. From the Attn Island, collected ])y William 11. Dall. 



Plate 1-tli shows the tine close-twined work done on the extreme 

 western islands of the Aleutian chain. The specimen luu'c described 

 is Catalogue No. 204588, U. S. National Museum, the gift of Mrs. 

 Mary Ij. D. Putnam, of Davenport, Iowa. Its noteworthy features 

 are the crossed warp and the patterns worked in colored worsted on 

 the surface. The material is beach grass, some species of Elyiuus. 

 The false embroidery on the surface, there can be no doubt, is bor- 

 rowed in its method from the Tlinkit Indians of southeastern Alaska. 

 Among the old Aleut wallets, of which there are many in the National 

 Museum, the weaving does not begin to be so tine as on this later ware. 

 It is the same story of progress. With the possession of better 

 knowledge, of superior tools, of gauges for sizing the straws, and, 

 above all, of such demands for their products as to stimulate emulation 

 to its highest pitch, the Atka and Attn weavers have reached their 

 climax. 



Plate 143 is introduced to show the technic of variety No. 5, 

 diverted warp coml)ined with variety No. 2, or open work. Fig. 1 

 illustrates the general etfect of this combination. Attention has 

 been called l)efore to the enigmas awakened by the great variet}^ 

 and exquisite taste of these people, our first possession in the East- 

 ern Hemisphere. In tigs. l> and c the detail will be better under- 

 stood. In tig. 1j the first row has parallel warp. In the next row 

 each pair of continuous warp straws are crossed. In the third row^ 

 they proceed vertically, and so do most of them in the fourth I'ow, Init 

 here and there they ai*e crossed again l)ack to the position they occu- 

 pied in the second row. These, too, continue in the oblique direction 

 in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth rows, crossed in each with a 

 straw of that particular row. In the upper course they return to 

 the vertical position. The twined weaving is precisely the same in 

 every case. It does not vary whether in the closed weaving or open 

 weaving. No artistic effect is expected thereof rom. In this plate, where 

 the decorative form is started in the bottom row and begins to w^den 

 out all of the intersections within the parallelograms are crossed. At 

 the tenth row, above the iq^pcr border of the draw'ing, the straws 

 return to their vertical position immediately over the starting point, 



"See Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1884, pi. i, fig. b. 



