384 COILED BASKETRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA [erH. ANN. 41 
bors. I believe that the reason why the Taitnapam claim to be 
indigenous must be looked for in the gradual settlement of this 
part of the country by the Yakima. According to the description 
given to Mr. Teit, it seems very likely that the Yakima language, 
to which the Taitnapam belongs, gradually gained the ascendency 
over the Salish dialect, so that in all probability the tribe, who live 
at the present time west of the Cascades, are the original Salish 
tribe who have gradually given up their language and speak a Ya- 
kima dialect now. This would account for the absence of any 
knowledge of migrations. 
Whatever kind of basketry these tribes may have made in earlier 
times must have been strongly under the influence of the adjoining 
southern Oregonian and Californian tribes, and this may account for 
the common occurrence of the Californian motifs on their baskets. 
Miss Roberts has called attention to the possible relation of 
imbricated basketry motifs to those of the Plains. In regard to this 
problem it seems important to remember that in the eighteenth 
century the Salish tribes, the Shoshoni and Kutenai, extended east 
of the mountains into the Plains and that their contacts with the 
eastern tribes were very weak. On the other hand it seems that 
Plains motifs passed at an early period over the mountains into the 
southern parts of the plateaus which are inhabited by the Shoshoni 
and their relatives, and it may well be that the Plains motifs found 
their way into British Columbia by this route. The occurrence of 
quadrilateral designs divided by a central band, which are highly 
characteristic of Plains Indians art and which occur frequently in 
the art of the western plateaus, is presumably an indication of this 
type of cultural relation. This motif is found in decorative forms 
consisting of a series of connected diamonds divided in two by a 
central stripe; and in the rectangular designs, found particularly on 
Lillooet basketry, divided in the center by an undecorated stripe 
and generally interpreted as ‘‘head design”’ (see pls. 19, a; 20, a; 29, c). 
The technical relation between beading and imbrication can hardly 
be doubted. The method of overlaying the coil with decorative 
material is the same in both cases. The stimulus that may have led 
to imbrication is the desire to obtain continuous surfaces of the same 
color. This may be done in beading by overlaying a number of 
stitches with the ornamental material, as is done in weaving. On 
account of the weakness of the ornamental grass or bark, work deco- 
rated in this way will quickly deteriorate because the long strips of 
overlaid material would tear easily. By catching the overlay in 
each stitch of coiling this difficulty is obviated because the overlay 
is thus held firmly to the surface of the basket. 
Beading occurs commonly on the coiled rims of birch-bark baskets 
both in America and Asia. It leads to a modest development of 
