226 COILED BASKETRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA LETH, ANN. 41 
All of the women interviewed are well acquainted with its decora- 
tive possibilities and its simple technique and make most of the easier 
patterns that are found, while the experts have evolved a number of 
other very pretty and quite complicated designs which will be dis- 
cussed later. In addition to making various patterns, a few women 
enhance their effect by regularly bifurcating the stitches on the coil 
above that which has been beaded. 
IMBRICATION 
Imbrication, which is the characteristic feature of modern baskets, 
is quite unique in the types of basketry technique of the world. 
Many of the design elements used, however, are found in the Plains, 
California, or the Southwest. 
The material employed is the same as in beading, except for the 
occasional recent substitution of black cloth for black bark or dyed 
grass. The process is as follows: After being started as just described 
in the third method, the ribbon is 
bent back face upward to the right 
over the coil stitch which fastens 
the end. A second coil stitch is 
then taken, but not pulled tight. 
The bark strip is bent back on itself 
to the left, the sewing always pro- 
aie gressing toward the right in normal 
Fic. 40.—Method of imbrication cases. Care is taken that the fold 
of the bark will come just where the half-finished stitch will lie. The 
fold is then slipped under the sewing splint, which is now pulled tight 
(fig. 40). The wet sewing splint holds the fold of the ribbon firmly. 
A sharp tug would be necessary to pull the bark from under it. As 
soon as a succession of stitches has been made, and the moist basket 
dries and ‘‘sets”’ a little, it becomes even more difficult to pull out 
the ribbon. Rather, instead of unraveling, the bark will break, be- 
cause when dry it is quite brittle. At the completion of the second 
stitch the ribbon lies as it did in the beginning, and the same process 
is repeated for two stitches, as has just been described, and so a 
second imbrication is completed. When a change or addition of a 
strip is necessary it is made as in the third method of beading. The 
two processes of starting beading and imbrication are closely related, 
and imbrication may have developed from beading. 
The effect of a line of imbricated stitches is that of a row of tiny 
overlapping shingles, only that the overlapping edges lie vertically, 
not horizontally, the left-hand edge of each “shingle” being on top. 
In working, the bark is placed in position with the thumb and fore- - 
finger of the left hand, sometimes assisted by those of the right hand, 
which are also used for folding the bark back. When finishing an 
