Boas] MATERIALS 147 
White, in addition to providing a background for setting off the de- 
sign, is likewise employed for outlining or for separating red and 
black parts in a single pattern. 
As may be expected from the limited range of color, there are 
naturally few dyes in use. Cherry bark in its raw state, or light- 
colored grass soaked in a decoction of alder, supply the red. Black 
is most commonly obtained either by burying the material to be 
dyed in muddy deposits of decomposed vegetal matter or by steeping 
it in a decoction of roots and decayed plants which have been brought 
in from the swamps. Sometimes a mixture containing charcoal is 
used. In the region of Lytton a modern method for dyeing cherry 
bark black is to steep it in tea, while in the neighborhood of Spuzzum 
an extract of balsam bark (Picea pungens Eng.) gives the same result, 
but this process of dyeing requires many days. The branches and 
bark of the western flowering dogwood (Cornus canadensis L.) are 
also boiled to make a black dye. About half of the material gathered 
is colored, while the remainder is used without coloring. Old 
baskets, bark vessels, or kettles of white manufacture serve as dye 
pots. 
Calking was especially practiced by the upper bands. As most 
well-made baskets were water-tight or nearly so, by being soaked or 
used as receptacles for water they soon became moisture proof. In 
cases where these methods would not work, and a water-tight con- 
dition was essential, several substances were used for calking. 
Sometimes fresh soapberries were mashed and boiled in the baskets, 
the fine seeds and sticky matter working into every little crevice and 
hardening there. Repeated washings seldom removed this filler as 
long as hot water was not employed. 
Heated cactus and probably the buds of the balsam poplar were 
sometimes smeared into the cracks, forming a glue which later 
solidified. 
Old baskets with holes too large to be treated in these ways were 
mended with the hardest and darkest colored yellow pine pitch 
obtainable. A large lump was placed upon a rock of suitable size 
and flatness which was heated in the fire. A smaller, hotter rock of 
the same shape was laid upon the pitch, which, as it melted, oozed 
out between the stones, where it was picked up on a flat pointed stick 
and applied to the spot which required attention, and cooled to a 
durable varnish. New baskets were seldom pitched, but when 
necessary a temporary calking was secured by rubbing them on the 
inside with hard deer tallow. 
Nearly all the Upper Thompson informants agree that long ago 
there were no substitutes for grass and cherry bark, which were 
either dyed or left in their natural state. Grasses were substituted 
for reeds and a few informants said that they had heard that the 
