THE OREGON NATURALIST, 



SO the work is relegated to only the aged, 

 who are skillful and learned. 



Summer is the season for this pre- 

 liminary work. The kindly elements 

 favor these children of Nature, the twigs 

 and grasses are flexible, the barks are 

 easily peeled and are rich in juices, and 

 the store of materials is gathered in. 



We will first consider the work of the 

 Aleuts of Atter island, the most westerly 

 point of Ounalaska and the most isolated 

 of our possessions. In this little sea- 

 girt land, scarcely more than a stepping- 

 stone to Asia, we discover the finest 

 weave in the world of basketry. The 

 barabas or home of the Aleuts is a sodden 

 hut, for it is literally made of soJ. The 

 roof is gay with brilliant flowers during 

 the long days of their brief summer, in 

 winter it is inconceivably damp and dreary 

 in the interior of the barabas, and it re- 

 quires many months of these days of 

 scanty and most welcome light to con- 

 struct a single basket. Luxuriant grass 

 springs up while the sunshine lingers, and 

 this is gathered and dried and split many 

 times. There is little variety of shape in 

 these baskets; the finest are perfectly 

 round, having covers and holding about a 

 pint, and perpendicular; the others are 

 much larger, have no covers, and are 

 round and not so fine. The weave of the 

 small ones is so fine as to resemble gros 

 grain silk, the number of stitches to the 

 square inch being almost double that of 

 of any other Indian basketry. No dyes 

 are used, and only a little ornamentation 

 of colored silk thread or worsted is deftly 

 introduced. One rarely meets another 

 style of Alaskan baskets from the remote 

 interior of the Northern Yukon country. 

 The only specimen here is a tiny affair 

 with a lid, though in the very small col- 

 lection from which this came there were 

 jar-shaped ones, holding a gallon, and 

 quite unlike other Alaska work— it is of 

 the cx)iled pattern. It is simple, without 



ornamentation, for Nature does not 

 abound in materials, dyes, or suggestions 

 for designs in this bleak and frozen world. 

 Other baskets of great beauty are made 

 in Alaska, and the one with wliich w_' are 

 the most familiar are tlicsi of Thlinkit 

 stock. Here, too, the shape is qu.te 

 unvaried, being round, rarely flarin.^, but 

 of many sizes, and, like thi Aleuts, tne 

 flexible bags or pouches of Eastern Ore ^on 

 and those of Northern California and 

 Southern Oregon, are known as twined 

 basketry. The work is oe^u.r in the 

 center of the Dottom, with spruce ■ roots, 

 warp and twine, the foimer radiating, and 

 forming tn^ toundatioa. The cylindrical 

 portion aione is ornamented in geometrical 

 designs, the grasses and roots being in the 

 dull natural green of the former, sparing- 

 ly used, black and the most beautiful and 

 harmonious browns, worked only half 

 through the foundation fabric. 



It is a quaint conceit to piace pei.^bles in a 

 most skillfully constructed hiding place with 

 in the lid; the rattle of these gives warn- 

 ing to the owner when one less dexterous 

 or industrious would purloin the treasure. 

 There are more simply constructed 

 baskets along the coast; they are mostly 

 flexible, of the checkerboard weave of 

 cedar bast, half of it som. times dyed black 

 to accentuate the pattern, and the twilled 

 splint of white birch wood and the bird 

 cage of spruce roots. These two are of 

 the Clallam Indians (Selish stock). 

 Next come the Makah, more commonly 

 known to us as the gay little Neah Bay 

 baskets, yet quite remarkable as being 

 very fine, and comprising the three distinct 

 weaves. The bottom is the checkerboard 

 pattern, in cedar of the Bilhoolas; the 

 twined pattern comes next, and the bird 

 cage pattern of the Clallams. This 

 weave — the bird cage— is known to exist 

 in but one other place in the world, and 

 that is on the Congo, where the men make 

 the baskets. Another quite interesting 



