520 



REPORT OF ISTATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



They had no pails or vessels of wood, but were not slow to invent. They there- 

 fore took willows, which grow in abundance along the river, and a reed, and 

 stripped the bark, then very adroitly split these with their teeth and wove them so 

 closely together as to hold water. This they accomplished by means of needles or 

 thorns of cactus, of which there are over one hundred varieties in this territory. 

 They used these baskets while digging small ditches, the women filling them with 

 earth and carrying them up the bank." 



Catalogue No. 76033, U. S. National Museum (see fig. 100), is a carrying 

 basket (ehikrs) of the Pima Indians, a pyramidal bag netted of the fiber 

 of the agave; at th(> vertex is an opening 3 inches in diameter. The 

 base is attached to a hoop by a string of agave fiber, with which the 

 hoop is served; the bag is decorated with fretted work painted black 

 and red. Two stems of the Cereus glganteus^ 34i inches long and one- 

 half inch in diameter, are passed from the outside of the hoop to the 

 inside of the hag, 1<» inches apart, thence down till they pass through 



the opening in the vertex; 

 at this point thej^ cross each 

 other at an acute angle and 

 extend 7i inches beyond; 

 two other stems 14 inches 

 h)ng are passed into the 

 ])ag. in front, in the same 

 way, 9 inches apart, and 

 their ends stop at the cross- 

 ing of the other sticks; at 

 this point the four are 

 firmly hished together and 

 the margin of the bag at 

 the vertex opening is fas- 

 tened to the sticks. 

 Where the sticks enter the hag the hoop is tied to them by ji cord 

 of black liorsehair; these also serve to tie the load in tlie basket. 

 Near the bottom a small brace of wood is passed through the meshes 

 of the bag and in front of the sticks on either side, to give it additional 

 strength. A jjiece of matting of split reeds, 16 by 7 inches, is attached 

 to the ])ack of the ])asket to protect tlie l)ody of the carrier; a pad of 

 cloth is placed l)etween the basket and matting for the same purpose. 

 A strong cord of twisted agave fiber, 3 feet long, is looped around 

 the vertex; the ends passed along the posterior sticks, outside the bag, 

 are fastened to the sticks by a loop of fiber. Above, the ends are 

 attached to the forehead ])and, woven from the softened fil)er of the 

 Yucca haccatdf it is double, and 7 inches long and 2 inches wide. 

 The staff is of wood 21 inches long and one-half inch in diameter, 

 painted red, ornamented at upper end with buckskin strings, and 



Fig. 199. 



coiled bowl. 



Pima Indians. 



Collected by Edward Palmer. 



"Isaac T. Whittemore, Among the Pimas, p. 53, Albany, N. Y., 1893. 



