ABORIGINAL AMP:RICAN BASKETRY. 499 



uniinmies of (iuit race. No squure-toed sandals aic found in caves 

 where remains of the ])asketniakers do not exist. 



The term Puehlo l)asi^etmaker is far from speeitic. It applies to 

 women of all the settled villag-es in New Mexico and Arizona, f lom Taos 

 on the Kio (Irande, in the former, to the Hopi in Arizona. The peo- 

 ples l)elon,u- to the Tanoan and Keresan families on the Kio (irand(>, to 

 the Zunian in western New Mexico, and the Hopian or Shoshonean in 

 Arizona." 



Far hack in time those structures whose ruins furnish inexhaustible 

 supplies of pottery and some textih's have to tell the tale as to the 

 ancient types of basketry. At the present moment oreut confusion 

 exists concerning the ethnic signiticance of })asketry in the pueblos. 

 Beautiful old pieces came twent}' years or more ago from these tillages 

 about which there is little information. James Stevenson wrote then 

 that the women of the villages were fond of si^curing in trade and 

 hoarding rare forms and weaves. The l)est that can ]>e now done is to 

 classify ruel)lo basketry as follows: 



(1) What the women are actually making and old material precisely 

 like it. 



(2) vSpecimens dug from sites of old pueblos and carefully labeled. 



(0) Old matei'ials stored up in the modern puebk)s, handed down 

 from the past, whose authorship is not known. 



If all this material could be assembled a variety of technical proc- 

 esses would be revealed, some of them common over wide areas and 

 a few characteristic of the pueblo culture. The following weaves are 

 among the list: 



(1) Checker weaving, rare. 



{'2) Wicker weaving, coarse and line. 



(3) Twilled work, in hard stems and in 3'ucca. 



(4) Twined work of many kinds on old baskets. Thought to be 

 intrusive. 



(5) Coiled work with foundation of stems, splints, grass, and 

 shredded leaves. The tine wicker and the thick coiled phKiues are 

 peculiar. The great variety mentioned is (piite as much between 

 pueI)los as ])etween these and tribes outside. The Hopi are note- 

 worth}' in this regard, having in their hands the making of the two 

 imique kinds of weave in their sacred meal plaques. A better insight 

 into these dift'erences will be gained ])y an examination of specimens. 



Plate 212 represents two ancient coiled basket jars collected at the 

 pueblo of Sia, on the Jemez Kiver, a tributary of the Rio Grande in 

 New Mexico. The Indians of this pueblo belong to the Keresan 

 famil}' . The characteristics to l)e observed and studied on these speci- 



«Fora list uf puebk)s see Seventh .Vnmial Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 

 under the words Keresan, 8hosh(jneau, Tanoan, and Zunian; for ruins see l)ibliog- 

 raphy under Fewkes, Hough, Keam, Mindeleff. 



