344 ARTS AND GRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
and another of such wefts is successively brought into requisition. 
Made from itiriti, by Makusi, though it: would seem to have been 
made formerly by the Arawak. The latter call it kerémi, a name 
given to a certain salt-water fish, the scales of which the interspaces 
bear comparison with. The completed article may thus be called by 
them kerémi-uda (scale) or kerémi-akushi (eye, interspace). 
430. Rectangular flat-base, closework baskets are either of a 
checker (sec. 106), wicker (sec. 107), or twilled (sec. 108) pattern. 
The checker baskets (pl. 111 B) are made from the leaf of the 
cho-wa, a palm somewhat resembling a small kokerit, which I have 
not succeeded in identifying, and are interesting in that, to procure 
increased strength and stability, each strand element consists of 
two or more superimposed strips. Once the base has been completed, 
somewhat after the style of the similarly constructed closework mats 
(sec. 395), the projecting 
ends are turned up and 
maintained in position 
by the multiple wefts, 
which gradually help in 
building up the sides (fig. 
150). The final weft is 
in the form of a thin 
cane strip, around which 
the ends of the warps are 
bent downward and back- 
ward again upon them- 
Fic. 150.—Diagram of checker pattern basket shown selves. The cover is 
pate io made on an identical pat- 
tern, but larger, so as to insure a good fit, the two together forming 
what the Creoles call a “pegall” (sec. 433). Makusi, and perhaps 
Wapishana. 
431. In the group distinguished by the base being plaited in the 
wicker (sec. 107) or “armadillo” style—a name given it by the 
Arawak in fancied resemblance to the markings on the creature’s 
shell—the basket is either complete and single in itself, with a smaller 
oval mouth, or made with a rectangular top, the same size as the 
bottom, and in duplicate, one moiety acting as tray, and the other 
(built very slightly larger) as cover, together constituting what 
is known as a pegall (pl. 112). Made of itiriti. Once the base 
of the oval-mouth article (fig. 151) is completed, it is tied to a 
light rectangular framework by overcasting the projecting pairs 
of strands. On the longer sides this presents no difficulties, but 
on the shorter edges care is taken to leave, between each pair of 
strands, a single one, which, looped over the framework to the in- 
