ABORIGINAL AMERICAN BASKETRY, 



417 



The small Chimmcscvan family, also called Tsimshian and Letter 

 known as Nass, are the extreme northern of the group. Their bas- 

 ketry is of root and runs largely into the mixed twined, checker, and 



twilled. i. ^ 4.1 



Necessarily coming southward from the spruce-root country to the 

 cedar area would have the effect to change nuich of the basketry from 

 rioid surfaces to tlexil)le and from twined weaving to checker and 

 twilled work. The National Museum possesses no specunens ot 

 Chinnnesevan ware of striking individuality. 



The ^Vakashan tribes occupy northern and western Vancouver Island, 

 the coast of British Columbia, and a small point of land m the north- 

 west corner of Washington. They are generally known by the name 

 \ht or Nootka on Vancouver Island, and include Boas s Ivwakmtl 

 •md the Bella Bella and Haeltzuk on the mainland. In recent years 

 they have been studied by Boas, by Tolmie and Dawson, and l>y hwan. 



A list of authorities will be found 

 given by J. W. Powell" and ]>y Boas.'' 

 "^ In addition to thc^ matting, both 

 checker and twilled, ([uite common 

 throughout this region, the AVakashan 

 tribes of Vancouver Island and Wash- 

 ington mak(^ a type of basketry which 

 is called in this paper the bird-cage or 

 wrapped twined w^ork, in which one 

 element of the weft remains inside 

 of the basket, and the other element, 

 which is more flexible, is wrapped 

 about the decussations of the warp 

 and the rigid element of the weft. It n , . ., -i 



mioht also be called the "fish-trap " style, since without doubt the finer 

 bas'ketry is the lineal descendant of the rude wicker fish trap. Imagme 

 a number of stakes driven into the ground pretty close together. A 

 horizontal pole is laid against them in the rear, and by the wrappings 

 of a withe around the pole -and each upright stake diagonally on the 

 outside and vertically on the inside a spiral fastening is Pi-o;^^^^;^*^^: ^\ 

 is shown in the openwork basket, Catalogue No. 23480, U. b. National 

 Museum, made hv a Clallam Indian. This wrapping crosses the two 

 fundamentals in front at an angle and the horizontal frame piece in the 

 rear at right angles, and the lacing may always run m the same direc- 

 tion, or the alternate rows of lacing may run in opposite directK.ns, 

 as in fio-. l-t9. As a matter of fact, in a soft and pliable material this 

 operation pushes the uprights forward a little, giving to the fabric an 

 appearance of the lathe work on the back of a watch. (See fig. l..(>.) 



a Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1891, p. 128. 

 b Reports to the British Association, 1889-1891, 

 NAT MUS 1902 27 



Fig. 149. 



detail i>v wrapped basket. 



Clallam Imlians. 



Collected by .T. G. Swan. 



