148 COILED BASKETRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA (ETH. ANN. 41 
Upper Thompson Indians occasionally ornamented with quills in 
place of these. They did not know whether or not porcupine or 
birds’ quills were selected, but felt sure that red and white were 
the colors preferred. Elaagnus bark, white and dyed red, and the 
inside bark of cedar or willow may have been used rarely. The 
Lytton people had substitutes for cherry bark, but what they were 
has not been learned. Since the coming of the white man they 
have also used strips of black dress goods for imbricating. (PI. 1, a.) 
Some old women of the Thompson tribe and neighboring bands 
tell of the following substitutes for bird-cherry bark: 
1. Chokecherry (Prunus demissa). Only the brightest colored and 
glossiest parts of the bark were chosen. 
2. Birch (Betula papyrifera). Only the best was collected and 
separated into layers by splitting and pulling, those of proper thick- 
ness and flexibility being then divided into ribbons of the. required 
width. 
3. White stems of young rushes and tule (Scirpus lacustris) were 
sometimes taken green and then dyed black in the same way as the 
cherry, or yellow by means of a decoction of wolf moss, or red with a 
dye usually extracted from the bark of alder roots. 
4. The stems of an Elymus, and rarely those of other grasses, were 
substituted for reeds. Grass, tule, and rushes were used for imbrica- 
tion only when bark was not obtainable. Besides red and black, 
yellow was derived from the root bark of the Oregon grape, or from 
wolf moss. These women do not remember having heard of the use 
of the inside bark of cedar, nor of that of willow and eleagnus bark, 
nor of goose and porcupine quills. In recent times good oat straw, 
black dress goods, and the inner corn husks have been introduced by 
some in the place of grass. 
From these rather conflicting reports it may be surmised that there 
were many local variations in the employment of substitutes.!! In 
several areas it has been ascertained that there was no yellow, while 
in others a few plants from which this color could be obtained seem 
to have been known and used. So far, in all the collections, no 
Thompson basket bearing designs wrought in yellow material have 
been found, except one which is unmistakably modern, with grass 
ribbons colored with aniline dyes.” 
For baby carriers, according to many people, yellow coloring 
matter was obtained from the Oregon graperoot, or from wolf moss. 
Red was derived from the bark of the alder or from red paint, purple 
and pink from berry juices and Chenopodium, blue from the roots of 
11 Most women prefer to leave a basket unfinished for a time rather than substitute material which they 
regard as inferior. 
12 Correspondence with Mr. Teit (1918) discloses the fact that several informants claim that yellow dye 
was formerly used among the Upper Thompson. Mr. Teit has seen only two or three baskets on which 
the grass was dyed yellow. The use of this color is said to have been more common among the Wenatchi 
and to the south.—F. B. 
