438 COILED BASKETRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA [eTH. ANN. 41 
decorative foundation. Tciaxa’tko said that occasionally she noted 
on a completed basket a design which was strange to her and made 
up her mind to copy it. She intended usually to do this exactly, but 
sometimes found that when she was ready to use it, although she 
had tried hard to remember all the details, she had forgotten some 
of them, and therefore had to content herself with a pattern which 
she realized was not a faithful reproduction, replacing the forgotten 
details with others of her own invention. These she selected as 
nearly as possible with an eye to their suitability. She never forgot 
the general form and arrangement of such designs. At other times 
she remembered quite well all the details of the pattern but purposely 
altered them to suit her fancy, to improve the pattern or to adapt 
it to the shape of the basket she was making. Occasionally she 
invented designs entirely new to her. Sometimes, to her surprise, 
she discovered similar designs on baskets made by women from distant 
parts of the country, but she said that always her design was a little 
different from theirs. ‘ Thus it seems that working with the same ele- 
ments and having a large but definite number of styles of arrange- 
ment which lend to Thompson art some peculiarities all its own pro- 
duced a unity of thought which limited the possibilities of invention 
and resulted in several distinct origins for similar artistic ideas. 
Tciaxa’tko often made use of old common designs which she 
adapted as she thought best, making alterations in the arrangement 
or even substituting new elements. When copying designs seen on 
other baskets, she never sketched them, nor did she draw her own 
inventions the better to see how they would look or whether they 
would be suited to her purpose. She did not need to draw them, 
she said, as she could imagine quite well exactly how they would 
appear. The designs made by her were very numerous. Some are 
represented in Plates 16, a; 22, ¢; 22, d; 23, ¢; 25, b; 25, c; 28, d; 31, b; 
33, b (short side); 34, a; 37, c; 55, g; 56, d; 57, c; also A. M. N. H. 
16/1044; 16/4581; 16/4621; 16/5889; and a stripe design running in 
horizontal rings all over the basket. 
A short time before her conversation with Mr. Teit, Tciaxa’tko 
had made the “bear track” design. She had heard that there was 
such an old pattern, but she had never seen it. Her grandmother 
and other old women ‘she knew had made it, but she did not know 
its construction. However, she thought about it and concluded that 
probably the best representation would be that which is given in 
Figure 122, 23. She could not tell whether there were any points of 
resemblance between it and the pattern her grandmother knew, nor 
had she ever seen her own invention or any like it on other baskets. 
She had never even heard of her pattern being duplicated by others. 
ie 
