108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 65 
construction. It is 23 inches long by 104 inches wide. Its main 
support is a hoop made from a stout unpeeled oak twig. The 
lower parts of this are broken away so that one cannot tell whether 
or not the ends were brought around into a loop at the bottom. 
The filling consists of two sets of carefully smoothed willow sticks. 
The longitudinally running series of 21 sticks is attached above 
to a crosspiece, the ends of which are bent about the sides of the 
frame; the lower end of the series of longitudinal sticks was prob- 
ably lashed to a second crosspiece, now missing, or perhaps to that 
part of the frame that is gone. The lateral series of sticks forms 
the upper surface of the cradle. Forty-five of its elements remain, 
and probably half as many more have disappeared. They have 
a double fastening, their ends being held by yucca-string ties to 
the outer frame and their central parts being fastened to the lon- 
gitudinal series by ornamental wrappings of fine human-hair cord. 
The design seems to have embodied large diamond-shaped figures. 
Screens of wooden rods held together by yucca strings running 
through perforations in them are very common in the ruins of the 
Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon (explorations of the authors; and 
see Nordenskiéld, 1893, pl. x1x, 2). During our excavations we were 
constantly on the lookout for fragments of them, but found only a 
single broken rod (A—1457, Ruin 7). From Ruin 9 came part of a 
screen made of large reeds held together by twined weaving of yucca 
strips (A-1599). 
Torches.—Long, thin bunches of cedar bark bound with yucca-leaf 
strips and showing signs of burning at their ends were collected in 
Ruin 2 (pl. 45, 4 and 5). (For fire-making apparatus, see under 
“ Objects of Wood,” p. 120.) 
Brushes.—A brush made by bundling together a quantity of 
straight, tough grass stems and tying them near one end with a bit 
of yucca string, was found in Ruin 1 (A-1152). Exactly similar 
brushes have been seen in use by the authors among the Navaho, the 
Rio Grande Pueblos, and the Zuni. The short ends serve in dress- 
ing the hair; the longer, flexible parts for cleaning pots, dusting out 
basketry meal trays, and sweeping the floor. 
BASKETRY 
Yucca ring baskets—We procured a few perfect specimens and 
many fragments of baskets of this class. They are in essence noth- 
ing but pieces of matting attached to rings of willow or some other 
pliable wood, but whether they were made as small mats and then 
fastened to the rings, or whether they were woven directly on the 
rings, we do not know. The ends of the elements that make up the 
mat are bent over the ring outward in bunches of two or four, made 
