294 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



in the coil just beneath, the stitch looping under a stitch of the lower 

 coil. When this work is carefully done, as among the Indians of New 

 Mexico, Arizona, and California, and in some exquisite examples in 

 bamboo from Siam and in palm-leaf from Nubia, the moi^t beautiful re- 

 sults are reached; but the Eskimo basket-maker does not prepare her 

 coils evenly, sews carelessly, passing the threads sometimes through 

 the stitches just below and sometimes between them, and does not work 

 her stitches home (Fig. G). Most of these baskets in the collection of 

 E. W. Nelson have a round bit of leather in the bottom to start upon 

 (Fig. 5, b). The shape is either that of the uncovered band-box or of 

 the ginger-jar. Especial attention should be paid to this form of stitch- 

 ing, as it occurs again in widely-distant regions in a great variety of 

 material and with modifications producing striking etiects. 



The association of this coiled form of basket-making with the marks 

 on the most primitive types of pottery-making has been frequently 

 noticed by archaeologists. It is also well known that the modern sav- 

 ages of our Southwest build up their pottery in this manner, either allow- 

 ing the coils to remain or carefully obliterating them by rubbing, first 

 with a wet paddle of wood, and afterwards, when the vessel is dry, with 

 a very fine-grained stone. 



The Eskimo women employ in basket-making a needle made of a bird 

 bone ground to a point on a stone (Fig. 100). Fine tufts of reindeer hair, 

 taken from between the hoofs, are extensively used in ornamentation, 

 especially in the Aleutian area. 



TINN:6 INDIANS. 



A few specimens of basketry from the vast Athapascan area contig- 

 uous to the Eskimo belong to the coiled type (Fig. 7). Instead of a 

 bunch of grass, however, a rod of willow or spruce root is carried 

 around in a coil and whipped on with a continuous splint of similar 

 material (Fig. 8). The stitches of the coil in jjrocess of formation, 

 passing regularly between those just below and locking into them, 

 alternate with them and give a somewhat twilled effect to the surface* 

 (Fig. 8). If now a strip of bast or grass be laid on the top of the osier 

 or spruce root coil and carried around with it, and the sewing pass al- 

 ways over these two and down between the bast and the osier of the 

 coil below, a much closer ribbed effect will be produced. Several 

 specimens of this kind of coiled basketry, in which a strip of tough 

 material is laid on top of the coiled osier, were collected at the mouth 

 of the Mackenzie Eiver by McFarlane and Ross, and Mr. Murdoch has 

 shown me a basket similarly wrought, from Point Barrow, which he 

 thinks many have been obtained by barter from the Tinn6 Indians in 

 the vicinity. The ornamentation on one specimen of this type is very 



*Tbe working of this stitcli is described and figured by Paul Schumacher in XII 

 Reuort of Peabody Museuuj, p. 524 : the coils are not, however, interlocked in all cases; 

 that is, if the foundation rods were pulled out the stitches would separate and the 

 whole structure come apart in some cases. ' 



