326 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
that the image is meant to represent an unborn fetus. The whole 
of the body is hollowed, the aperture taking up the whole of the but- 
tocks, and closed by a flat, thick plug of soft wood. A round peg of 
wood is driven in to close an accidental 
hole just above the left shoulder. The 
box is old and discolored, and worn smooth 
with much handling. 
Rarely these little workboxes are made 
of basketwork. We obtained four speci- 
mens of these small baskets, of which 
No. 56564 [88] Fig. 335, workbasket (agu- 
ma, ama, ipidru), will serve as the type. 
The neck is of black tanned sealskin, 24 
inches long, and has 1 vertical seam, to 
the middle of which is sewed the mid- 
dle of a piece of fine seal thong, a foot 
long, which serves to tie up the mouth. 
The basket appears to be made of fine 
twigs or roots of the willow, with the bark removed, and is made by 
winding an osier spirally into the shape of the basket, and wrapping 
a narrow splint spirally around the two adjacent parts of this, each 
turn of the splint being separated from the next by a turn of the sue- 
ceeding tier. The other basket from Utkiavwin (No. 56565 [135]) is 
almost exactly like this, but larger (3-5 inches in diameter and 2-2 
high), and has holes round the top of the neck for the drawstring. 
Two baskets from Sidaru are of the same material and workman- 
ship, but somewhat larger and 
of a different shape, as shown 
in Fig. 336, No. 89801 [1366], 
and Fig. 337, No. 89802 [1427]. 
Fia. 335.—Small basket. 
This was the only species of Me 
basketwork seen among these — yyy 
people and is probably not of — pRn ae rh oo ink 
native manufacture. Bh A ‘ aR ia 
ek Wiadital 
Prof. O. T. Mason, of the Na- 
tional Museum, has called my 
attention to the fact that the 
method of weaving employed in making these baskets is the same as 
that used by the Apaches and Navajos, who have been shown to be 
linguistically of the same stock as the Athabascan or Tinné group of 
Indians of the North. The first basket collected, No. 56564 [88], was 
said by the owner to have come from the ‘‘great river” in the south. 
Now, the name Kuwtk or Kowak, applied to the western stream flow- 
ing into Hotham Inlet, means simply ‘great river,” and this is the 
region where the Eskimo come into very intimate commercial relations 
with Indians of Tinné stock.' Therefore, in consideration of the Indian 
FiG, 336.—Small basket. 
1 Dall, American Association, Address, 1885, p. 15. 
— pas ‘ 
