BoAs| SELECTION OF DESIGN 303 
were quite new. In all cases they were very complicated, or difficult 
to execute (a good example of how the creative instinct was hampered 
by the technique). For this reason she never made any of them, 
although in some instances she remembered them for a long time. 
With these visions there was never any description, no one presented 
the designs, and no one spoke. Other women, however, sometimes 
had encounters in their dreams. No. 25 never experienced this but 
once, when she saw the only design she ever dreamed about, which 
was not on a basket. In this case it was a blanket design shown her 
by a woman she had known who had long been dead. The woman 
asked her if she could make it, and she responded that she might try 
if her eyesight were better. But the design was hard and she never 
attempted it, although she often thought she would. Her eyes 
became worse and she had to abandon the plan. 
The objects seen in a dream are pictured more or less realistically 
and serve to commemorate or record the event. If the dream is very 
striking or unusual it is sometimes represented on the first basket 
which the woman makes afterwards. Such pictures are used only 
once. Generally they are not easy to produce, nor are they capable 
of being so adapted to the space offered as to be employed for design 
purposes, even were their significance of general interest. When 
making baskets for shamans or other men, designs which are symbolic 
of their guardian spirits are frequently made according to directions 
given by the prospective owners, but the maker may be left free to 
exercise her choice of arrangement because it is conceded that she is 
then better able to balance the figures after the fashion in vogue on 
ordinary baskets. If the exact details are left to the woman she 
usually produces a much superior piece of work. 
Each woman probably makes a large number of designs,® and 
all the informants expressed opinions regarding their combination 
with one another, stating that some can be united more artistically 
than others. They are by no means agreed on this point in every 
case, although generally a pleasing combination is not a subject of 
much concern; on the contrary, patterns are often put together with- 
out much thought, except when they can not be made to fit. 
A number of women agreed that triangles or half arrowheads, mean- 
ing right-angled triangles, combined well with diamonds, especially 
if the former surrounded the latter so that their oblique sides were 
parallel (fig. 90, a), and that the equilateral or isosceles triangle 
called arrowhead might be artistically combined with two con- 
verging lines (fig. 90, 6). Small crosses or stars, groups of short 
parallel lines, dots, small squares (rectangles?), triangles, and dia- 
monds were considered useful for combination with larger figures 
when forming designs where it seemed advisable to create centers 
52 See appendix, pp. 431 et seq., for lists of informants and the designs they have made, 
