RissKLL] ARTIFACTS 135 



Implements 



Tho only implements used in the niunufacture of the common 

 l)a.skpts are awls and knives. The awl was formerly of hone or 

 mesquite wood. Now it is of steel with a wooden or gum handle 

 (fig. 22, a, b). Common ease knives or light huteher knives, well 

 sharpened, are used to trim the strips of willow at the time of use. 



Method 



The ordinary haskets are made hy the process knowTi as coiling. 

 The center is of devil's claw, which is generally started as a coil, hut is 

 sometimes made by the process called checker weaving for a few cen- 

 timeters before beginning the coil. The half stalks of the cat-tail are 

 again split before being used and about a dozen of these splints are 

 taken to form a foundation. The other two materials, willow and 

 devil's-claw splints, are kept in water at the time of use to render 

 them flexible. One end of each splint is held in the teeth while the 

 knife is rapidly scraped along the rough side and while the edges are 

 trinnned smooth ami made parallel, l^pon this part of the operation 

 depends much of the evenness and fineness of the finished basket. 

 The details of the work do not differ from those of coiled basketry 

 everywhere, which have been so fully and entertainingly described by 

 Professor Mason. The margin was left with the splint wrapped 

 smoothly around it until a few years ago when "some man," supposed 

 to have been a Papago,"t()ld them to braid it;" the tops t)f baskets 

 are therefore usually finished by passing a single devil's-claw splint in 

 and out and backward and forward over the margin, to which it gives 

 a braided appearance. W^en the weaving is completed the ends of 

 the splints project on the exterior surface, making it very rough. It 

 is also soiled and stained from having been lying about during the 

 intervals when it was not in the maker's hands for the weeks or 

 months that have elapsed since it was begun. By means of a knife 

 the longer and tougher ends are cut away, while the others are broken 

 and the stains are removed by thoroughly rubl)iiig the surface with 

 leaves and twigs of the saltbushes, Atriplex leuliformis, A. canescens, 



A. polycarpa, etc. 



Basket Bowls 



This term may be accepted in lieu of a better one, for the tray- or 

 bowl-shaped baskets, which arc shallow and have their sides sloping 

 at a low angle from the horizontal. They range from a perfectly flat 

 <lisk to a bowl with rounded bottom having a depth of 20 cm. 



The designs upon these old-style baskets are often very pleasing 

 and even remarkably good. When ([uestioned as to the meaning of 

 the elements of these patterns, the basket makers invariably re})lieil: 

 "1 don't know; the old women make them in this way. They copied 



