406 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



These two are onl^^ specimens of the innumerable ways of producing 

 efl'ects in Aleutian 1)askets by changes in the warp. 



It will add to the interest in the Attn weaver to see her at her work. 

 Plate 144, taken by Engineer C. (ladsden Porcher, of the United States 

 Revenue Marine, shows her at the front door of her 1)arabra or under- 

 ground hut. She is essentialh^ a cave dweller. The framework of 

 the house may be driftwood, wreckage, or timl)er deposited l)y ships. 

 Over this moss from the tundra is piled, and nature plants her garden. 



The first thing that demands notice is that she is weaving upward — 

 upside down, a careless first thought would say. The bottom of her 

 line wallet is suspended from a pole, most primitive of warping ])eams, 

 stuck into the I'oof of the barabra. John Smith's Indians used a limb 

 of a tree (fig. 148). The Bristol Bay Eskimo now employ a stick sup- 

 ported on forked stakes; so do the Chilkats for their highl3^-prized 

 blankets, and the tribes farther south to make cedar-bark garments. 

 Indeed, the loom is al)out to be born. With a lens it will be seen that 

 the basket maker is doing the best work, in which every variet}^ of 

 Aleutian technic is engaged. Her costume shows her to r)e in the 

 current of world-eml^racing commerce and thought. The plants 

 about her and the precious work of her hngeis, together with the 

 ideas in her attentive mind, are survivals from the past. 



TLINKIT BASKETRY 



The basket work of the Tliidvit Indians is superb. Everyone who 

 sees it is struck with its delicacy of workmanship, shape, and orna- 

 mentation. Most of the specimens in the National Museum collection 

 are of the bandbox shape, but they can be doubled up flat like a 

 grocer's bag. (Plates 65 and (il.) The material of foundation and 

 sewing is the young and tough root of the spruce, split, and used 

 either in the native color or dj^ed brown or black. The structure 

 belongs to the twined tjq^e before mentioned and there is such uni- 

 formity and fineness in the warp and woof that a water-tight vessel 

 is produced with very thin walls. In size the wallets vary from a 

 diminutive trinket basket to a capacity of nearly a bushel. All sorts 

 of designs in bands, crosses, rhombs, chevrons, triangles, and grecques 

 are produced thus: First, the bottom is woven plain in the color of 

 the material. In a great many pieces a row of plain weaving alter- 

 nates with the twined weaving for economy. Then in the building up 

 of the basket bands of plain color, red and black, are woven into the 

 structure, having the same color on both sides. " Afterwards little 

 squares or other plain figures made into designs are sewed on in 



« See G. T. Emmons in the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, New York, 1903. This paper is the result of twenty years' work among the 

 Tlinkits hy a patient observer, and should be studied with special care. 



