June 30, 1904 J 



NA TURE 



199 



ABOKIGIXAL AMEKICAX BASKETKYA 

 'T^HE attention of our reader> has several times 

 A been directed to papers and memoirs by American 

 -•tudents on aboriginal American basketry; some 

 authors, like L. Farrand (" Basketry Designs of the 

 Salish Indians," Mem. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., ii., 5), 

 G. T. Emmons (" The Basketry of 

 the Tlingit," I.e. iii., 2), R.' B. 

 Di.\on (" Basketry Designs of the 

 .Maidu Indians of California," .4m. 

 .intlirop., June, iqoo; " Basketrv 

 Designs of the Indians of Northern 

 California," Bull. .Am. Mus. Nat. 

 Hist., xvii.), and a few others have 

 studied the designs plaited in 

 baskets, and have discovered their 

 symbolism. W. H. Holmes (" .A, 

 Study of the Textile .Art in its Re- 

 lation to the Development of Form 

 and Ornament," Sixth .Ann. Rept. 

 Bureau Ethnol.) was one of the 

 first to direct attention to the effect 

 of the technique on the ornament- 

 ation of baskets, while the tech- 

 nique itself of basketry has per- 

 sistently been studied by Dr. Otis 

 T. Mason, and now he has in- 

 creased the indebtedness of ethno- 

 logists to his labours by the publi- 

 cation of a monograph which gives 

 a much needed general survey of 

 .iboriginal basketry in .America. 



.As is usual in publications coming from the United 

 States, this work is lavishly illustrated, there being 

 J 12 figures in the text and 248 beautiful plates, several 

 of which are coloured. The memoir deals with basket 



enables us for the first time to make a comprehensive- 

 survey of this beautiful industry as practised by the 

 aborigines of North America, for, despite its title, the 

 basketry of Mexico and of Central and South .America 

 is only cursorily dealt with in this monograph. 



Owing to differences of climate, rainfall, and other 

 characteristics of environment, the materials for 



' \ ^ W '^ ^ > -A . 



Fig. 2.— .Modified Fo 



1 Baskeliy. 



making (including a valuable section by F. \'. Coville 

 on the plants u^ed in basketry), ornamentation and 

 symbolism, uses of basketry, and ethnic varieties of 

 baskets. The last section is the most valuable, as it 



^ *' Aboriginal A 

 Machinery.- Bv Oi 

 lioi:, 1902, L'..S. Nati 



Basketry: Studies in a Textile .-^rt without 

 Tufton Mason. Report of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 lal Museum (1504). 



basketry vary greatly from region to region through- 

 out .America, and this in spite of all ethnic consider- 

 ations. .Again, the motives for the use of basketry 

 differ from place to place, so much so that peoples 

 of one blood make one ware in this place and another 

 in that. Finally, however, writes Dr. Mason, it must 

 never be forgotten that the ideas, utilitarian and 

 artistic, in the minds of the manufacturers themselves, 

 serve to bestow special marks upon the work of 

 different tribes, so as to give to them ethnic or national 

 significance in any circumstances. Were there no. 

 mixture of tribes it might be possible to state in every 

 case the maker of each specimen from the technique 

 and the ornamentation ; but throughout the entire 

 continent the practice of capturing women was 

 common, and in each case the stolen ones carried to 

 their homes the processes they had been familiar with 

 in their native tribe, and, further, the materials for 

 basketry were traded, as were probably the baskets 

 themselves. New designs are occasionally introduced 

 along with ancient patterns, as may be seen in Fig. 2,. 

 where dogs and horses are interspersed among pre- 

 Columbian decoration ; indeed, the influence of the 

 white man is very rapidly modifying native .American 

 basketrv; "in methods, forms and colours truly old 

 things have passed away, and, behold, all things have- 

 become new." .A. C. H. 



THE ^[I^^I^^G st.atistics of the 



WORLD. 



ONE of the recommendations of a Departmental 

 Committee of 1894 was that the British mining 

 industrv should be compared with similar industries, 

 of other countries, and from that time Sir Clement 

 Le Neve Foster compiled annually for the Home Office 

 an invaluable collection of comparative minerat 

 statistics. Every year the report showed improvement, 

 and every year the difficulties arising from want of 

 adequate official statistics were more nearly obviated. 

 \\'hile the present report was in preparation Sir 



NO. 1809. VOL. 70I 



