1 4 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XVII, 



put but one design on a basket. There are four or five cases, 

 in the seventy or more baskets here shown, in which more 

 than one design is used. This proportion is certainly too 

 large, the number of cases in which more than one design 

 occurs on a basket averaging more nearly three out of a 

 hundred. The distinctiveness of this characteristic will be 

 apparent as the designs of the other stocks are taken up. 



To sum up, then, the characteristic features of Maidu 

 basketry-designs may be said to be the very large variety and 

 number, the frequency of animal designs and the unusual 

 predominance of plant designs, the considerable number of 

 designs in which there is a more or less obscure realism, the 

 strong tendency shown toward an arrangement in spiral or 

 zigzag lines, and the well-nigh universal practice of putting 

 but a single design on a basket. 



PIT RIVER. The Indians commonly known by this name, 

 and belonging to the Palainihan linguistic stock, occupy the 

 greater part of the valley and drainage basin of the Pit River 

 in northeastern California, and are the immediate northern 

 neighbors of the Maidu. The designs here given form but 

 a portion of the whole body of design known to the stock, 

 collections from this region not being as complete as from the 

 Maidu area to the south. It will be noticed, that, whereas 

 the Maidu make baskets of both the coiled and woven varieties 

 (although principally of the former), the Pit River baskets are 

 all, so far as known, of the woven type. Dividing the designs 

 into groups as far as possible, we may again begin with 



i. Animal and Plant Designs. Among the many peculiar 

 and unique designs in use by these Indians is that known 

 as "mussel's tongue'.' (the fresh-water mussel), shown on 

 Plate XVIII, Figs, i, 2, 3. One of the commonest forms is 

 that in Fig. i, which has combined with it, as a rim around 

 the edge of the basket, the arrow-point. Fig. 2 shows another 

 form of the design, combined here with the stripe. In Fig. 

 3 the design appears again, here subordinated to the pine- 

 cone, represented by the hour-glass figures, which predomi 

 nate in the ornamentation. 



The design in Fig.. 4 is known as "skunk," perhaps com- 



