Boas] DESIGN FIELDS eel. 
times each field contained only one design, but occasionally there 
were two (pl. 19). This style closely resembled one still employed 
by the Lillooet (pl. 20, a, 6). Plate 21, c, represents a modern copy 
of this old style as well as of the old, somewhat rounded form of 
burden basket. 
Second type. There are also two fields, but the upper occupies 
about three-quarters of the entire surface and carries the designs, 
while the lower is left plain, without any imbrication. If patterns 
appear at all, they aremerely lines of beading. (Pl. 22, a, b; cisa 
modern adaptation.) As far as the informants could recall, no ‘‘drop- 
pers” like those on Lillooet baskets were ever used by the Thompson, 
no matter what type of ornamentation was applied.*® 
Third type. It was less common, but still frequent; charac- 
terized by the use of three fields, all about the same width, the 
upper and lower thirds imbricated all over for background and de- 
sign, while the middle third lacked the imbricated background. In 
some instances the central field was entirely imbricated, both back- 
ground and design, while the upper and lower fields carried only 
imbricated or beaded designs on a plain background (pl. 24, d). 
Either the three fields carried different designs or else the upper and 
lower thirds had the same pattern, while the middle area was differ- 
ent. Occasionally baskets with this style of ornamentation bore im- 
bricated vertical bands crossing the central section at regular dis- 
tances, connecting the upper and lower fields. They were usually 
narrow and contained small designs. The Lytton people used this 
scheme of decoration quite frequently. 
Nowadays very few if any Thompson baskets are decorated in 
any of the above-mentioned ways, but the first method is common 
among the Lillooet, while the third is characteristic of the Chilcotin 
(pl. 8, a). An example of a Thompson basket of the third style 
is probably represented by Plate 24, a. 
Mr. Teit summarizes his long-continued observations in the field 
as follows: 
Thompson baskets, especially burden baskets, usually have no imbricated 
field in which the designs are set. As arule, the bare coils of the basket form the 
background, the designs only being imbricated, and worked in three colors, red, 
white, and black. When this is not the case, as happens in less than a quarter of 
the baskets made, then the whole is imbricated with white straw, excepting the 
designs which are in bark, usually dyed red or black. Sometimes white (straw) 
is used as a filler in the design when its character permits this. Occasionally 
two-thirds of the basket surface is imbricated with bark, as in checker designs of 
all-over distribution, where all three colors appear in equal proportions, but in 
this case no one color can be called the background. Red is the preferred color 
when only one is used, black is next in popularity, but white is seldom used 
except for backgrounds. The exceptions to the single field of designs on modern 
baskets are very few. 
% See, however, remark on p. 232. 
53666°—28——16 
