THE BASKET MAKER 



Indian women do not often live to great 

 age, though they look incredibly steeped 

 in years. They have the wit to win sus- 

 tenance from the raw material of life with- 

 out intervention, but they have not the 

 sleek look of the women whom the social 

 organization conspires to nourish. Seyavi 

 had somehow squeezed out of her daily 

 round a spiritual ichor that kept the skill 

 in her knotted fingers long after the ac- 

 customed time, but that also failed. By 

 all counts she would have been about 

 sixty years old when it came her turn to 

 sit in the dust on the sunny side of the 

 wickiup, with little strength left for any- 

 thing but looking. And in time she paid 

 the toll of the smoky huts and became 

 blind. This is a thing so long expected 

 by the Paiutes that when it comes they 

 find it neither bitter nor sweet, but toler- 

 176 



