46 THE INDIANS OF CAPE FLATTERY. 



are plain, the color being of a buff, somewhat resembling the Mexican wool hats. 

 This color cannot be removed by bleaching, attempts for this purpose having 

 been made in San Francisco and Victoria; but the experiment proved a failure. 

 The color, however, is no objection, and is indeed rather preferred ; the hats being 

 more generally purchased as curiosities than as articles for wear. Within a few 

 years past they have taken a fancy to cover with basket-work any bottles or vials 

 they can obtain, and, as they do this sort of work very well, they find &quot;ready sale for 

 it among the seekers after Indian curiosities. 



During rainy weather they make use of capes worn over the shoulders while 

 in the canoes. These are woven whole, with a single opening in the centre 

 for the head to pass through, something like a poncho. They come down from 

 the neck to the elbow, and are usually trimmed with fur around the edges. 

 Some are woven from cedar bark, and others from strips of cloth or old blankets. 

 They are warm, and impervious to water, and when an Indian has on one of these 

 and his conical hat, his head and shoulders are well protected from wet. The rest 

 of his body he seems to care little about, and he paddles round in his canoe with 

 bare legs and arms, seemingly as indifferent to the rain or the water as a seal or an 

 otter. 



The baskets made by the Makahs are classed according to the material of which 

 they are formed, and the uses to which they arc put. The large ones, made of bark, 

 which are used for holding dried fish, or blankets, are called klap-pairk. Carrying- 

 baskets, worn on the back, with a strap around the fore 

 head, are made of spruce roots or cedar twigs. They are 

 woven quite open, and much larger at the top than at the 

 bottom, the form tapering down in something of a wedge- 

 shape. This enables them to carry loads with greater ease, 

 as the weight is kept well up on the shoulders. These 

 baskets are called bo-he-vi. Small baskets are made of bark 

 and grass, dyed of various colors. Some are woven with 

 designs intended to represent birds or animals; others in 

 simple checks of various patterns. Other small ones are of 

 Bark basket. bark, and a species of eel grass that bleaches of a beautiful 



white. These small baskets are called pe-ko. The various 



colors are produced thus : black, by immersing the material in the salt-water mud, 

 where it remains several weeks, usually during the summer months ; a place being 

 selected where the mud is rich with marine alga?, and emits a fetid smell, the 

 sulphuretted hydrogen undoubtedly being the agent that imparts the color to 

 the vegetable fibres of the bark or grass ; red is procured from the alder bark 

 by the process already described ; yellow from the bark of the root of the Oregon 

 grape (Berberis), which is boiled, and the grass immersed in it. Bark is not dyed 

 yellow, that color only being imparted to beach grass, which is used for weaving 

 into baskets, and around the edges of some kinds of mats as an ornament. Grass 

 in its natural state, by contrast with the other colors, appears white ; but a pure 

 white is obtained from the eel grass, or sea weed, which is procured in the bay, 

 and bleached in the sun. 



