IN CALIFORNIA 149 



To the average white person, however, the most 

 interesting handicraft of the California Indians is 

 their basketry, the one art in which they have ex- 

 celled, and because of which their reputation as art- 

 ists is assured. While baskets are made by many 

 tribes of Indians there are not any that equal the 

 best of Pacific Coast workmanship, notably those of 

 the Pomos, in Northern California. Of course every 

 Indian squaw is not capable of touching the high- 

 water mark of perfection in her art, any more than 

 every Caucasian artist is capable of being a Corot 

 or a Michael Angelo. Nevertheless, the making of 

 any Indian basket means the possession of some de- 

 gree of artistic instinct combined with knowledge 

 of plant life and much patient industry. It is not 

 made of just any kind of grass on a frame work of 

 just any kind of twigs, but the materials must be 

 prepared from a few selected sorts of plants which 

 long experience has taught the Indian are the best. 



At a little southern rancheria with which I am 

 acquainted, there are three or four old women who 

 still practise this most primitive of arts. Their 

 work is of the coiled kind, not woven as are the bas- 

 kets of the Pomos, and every summer at a certain 

 time which they know to be right, they, or some of 

 the men of their family, make an excursion by 

 wagon or on horseback, or if need be afoot, to a par- 



