420 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



baskets, showing both imbrication and overlaying with grass. The 

 specimens shown in this plate are in the collection of Miss A. M. Lang, 

 The Dalles, Oregon. They should be examined carefully with respect 

 to the characteristics of foundation, stitch, shape, design, and quality 

 mentioned above. 



Fig. 155 is a precious old coiled and imbricated basket. The bot- 

 tom is made up of lifteen foundation rods laid parallel. Each one of 

 these is overlaid by a strip of bright yellow squaw grass. Thus pre- 

 pared, these rods are sewed together by coil stitching, which are split 

 or bifurcated, and some trifurcated in the operation. Again, while 

 the stitching is solid on the inside, those in sight are from one-eighth 

 to one-fourth of an inch apart on the outside, showing that every 

 other stitch is under the straw. On the outside of this rectangular 



Fio. 155. 



COILEB AND IMBKICATED BASKET. 

 Oat. No. 002.%, U.S.N. M. Collt'ited l).v J. J. Maelean. 



bottom the regular coiled work ])egins and the body is l)uilt up, the 

 stitches all ])eing concealed bv what in this treatise is called imbricated 

 ornament or knife plaiting, carefully descril)ed and Illustrated else- 

 where. In this example the oi-namentation is in squaw grass, cherry 

 bark, and cedar bark, dyed black. (See iigs. 52-55.) 



The foundation of the coiled work is not a single rod, but a Ininch 

 of splints made from the cedar root. Catalogue No. 60235 in the 

 U. S. National Museum was procured from Sitka, Alaska, Indians by 

 J. J. McLean, to which place it had doubtless drifted in trade from 

 the Fraser River region. Its length is 8i inches and height 3i inches. 



Mr. Hill-Tout reports that for boiling their food the N'tlaka pamuq 

 tribe (Salishan famil}'), on the Fraser and the Thompson River, always 

 used basket kettles made like their other basketry from the split roots 

 of the cedar. These roots are sometimes red and bhick, and very 



