450 COILED BASKETRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA [ETH. ANN. 41 
but identified it with the Lytton or Upper Thompson “mula.” She 
had made it but declared that it was not ancient at Spuzzum. Ac- 
cording to tradition it had been borrowed from up the river. The 
pattern seen in Plate 40, 6, was not made at Spuzzum until about 
1885, when her sister introduced it, having copied it from the 
printed border of a white man’s handkerchief. The design in Figure 
65 was said to be very old. It was formerly made at Spuzzum but 
became obsolete and she had forgotten its name. Together with other 
Spuzzum people she called the pattern seen in Plate 47, d, a ‘‘berry”’ 
design. Figure 122, 46, was made always in red and black at Spuz- 
zum and was known as “‘striped snake.” If made with white instead 
of red some people would think it was a dentalia pattern, which 
might have been the reason, she thought, why it was always red and 
black. She had made all these designs. 
Realistic figures were very rare on Spuzzum basketry long ago and 
very few were being made when Katie was interviewed. Some 
people think there were none formerly. 
In regard to technique she was well informed. She usually made 
the height of the basket wall equal to the length of the bottom, and 
this she frequently measured by spans, the finger length, the distance 
between joints, and the finger width. lf she measured properly, 
either with her hands or splints, or if she counted her stitches, she 
could always obtain uniform designs which were well spaced and 
balanced and no filling was required. She had never found it neces- 
sary to use such devices and preferred not to do so. 
She had the whole picture of her design clearly in mind before 
starting the side walls, and she never changed it once it was begun. 
Such patterns as the “woven” design (pl. 32, c) were very difficult 
so she copied them from sketches until half completed and then 
used the finished part as a guide, since the other was only a reverse. 
Occasionally she employed other baskets as models when copying. 
But if she could not procure the baskets she relied upon her memory 
or made a sketch. Long ago, before the whites came, women often 
sketched with charcoal on birch bark the designs they wished to copy, 
and more rarely they planned out new ones on bark or smooth pieces 
of wood. Men also drew designs to work by when carving or incising 
on wood. 
Katie and her sister and all careful workers measured their designs 
with a loose piece of splint when starting them so as to place them 
properly about the circumference. Equidistant arrangements seemed 
best to them. They measured around with the splint and marked 
those points where they were to start the designs by inserting into 
the coil little pieces of splint about half an inch long. If they found 
the arrangement would not work out evenly they shifted the measure- 
ments and markers until it did. If they trusted only to the eye they 
