254 THE PATTERNS ON THE MATS. 
eribed in the trip to Fort Rupert. They use 
lodges, or in other words, conical tents, when 
fishing and moving from place to place, during 
the summer; these lodges generally consist of 
poles covered with mats. The Sumass and 
Chilukweyuk Indians frequently use rush mats; 
the rushes are harvested, and brought from long 
distances, then carefully dried in the sun; when 
dry they are sewn together with long needles 
made of hard wood varying in length from six 
feet to four inches, threaded with cord twisted 
from the smaller rushes; mats thus made are 
perfectly rain-proof. The coast Indians usually 
cover their summer lodges with mats made from 
the inner bark of the Cedar (Thwa gigantea). 
These mats are platted together and exactly 
resemble bas, or matting, as it is usually called. 
In platting the bark they manage to produce 
very beautiful patterns to ornament their mats; 
and as different tribes adopt each a pattern of its 
own, an Indian can readily tell to which tribe any 
particular mat belonged. Specimens of the rush 
and cedar bark mats are in the Indian collec- 
tion of the British Museum, brought home by 
myself. 
The inland tribes, as a rule, live winter and 
summer in lodges; some of the poorer tribes use 
