Boas] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 365 
up through the slits, where it is caught by a sinew thread which 
lies on the surface of the skin and is passed through the loops 
which are then drawn tight.” 
While it is not meant to convey the idea here that the Indians of 
the coast of Alaska learned to do porcupine-quill work or beading 
from the Koryak, certainly it is very interesting that a technique 
which is fundamentally so similar to one type of quillwork about to 
be described should exist in a not distant region and that, so far as 
is known, it is not employed elsewhere in the world. 
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5 ® 10 Se ee 
101 XX ee Zia 
11 12 13 15 
Fic. 110.—Embroidery designs from Thompson baskets 
A number of types of porcupine-quill technique are in use, all of 
which have been fully described by William C. Orchard.” That 
which is most like the skin work of the Koryak is strangely enough 
the finest and most delicate of them all. It has been made from 
Alaska to the Great Lakes, and even among the Iroquois. It is 
woven on a loom. ‘The technique is described as follows: 
The process of weaving consists first of making the warp strands of either sinew 
or vegetal fiber, which are stretched side by side their entire length on a bow, 
much as a bowstring would be strung. To keep the warp strands spread apart 
the desired width two pieces of thick, leathery birch bark are perforated with a 
straight row of small holes corresponding in number with the number of strands 
to be used and the distance between the perforations corresponding with the 
width of a flattened porcupine quill. A piece of bark so prepared is placed at 
6 William C. Orchard, The Technique of Porcupine-Quill Decoration among the North American In- 
dians, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York, vol. 4, No. 1. 
