COLLECTORS OF AMERICAN BASKETRY MASON. 



[6] 



but the patterns run obliquely to the axis of the fabric, giving the 

 appearance of diagonal weaving. When warp and weft are fine yarn 

 or threads, the result is the simplest form of cloth in cotton, linen, 

 pina fiber, or wool. The cheap fabrics of commerce are of this species 



of weaving. In art, latticework fre- 

 quently shows the bars intertwined as 

 in checker basketry (fig. 3). 



B. Diagonal or twilled hasketry. — 

 This is seen in those parts of the world 

 where cane abounds. In America it is 

 common in British Columbia, Wash- 

 ington, Southern United States, Mexico, 

 and Central America, and of excellent 

 workmanship in Peru, Guiana, and 

 Ecuador. The fundamental technic of 

 diagonal basketry is in passing each ele- 

 ment of the weft over two or more warp 

 elements, thus producing either diagonal 

 or twilled, or, in the best samples, an 

 endless varietj" of diaper patterns (figs. 4 and 5). See Sixth Annual 

 Report of the Bureau of Ethnolog}?^, p. 216, figs. 316-318, for excel- 

 lent examples of this. 



The North Americans of antiquit}^ were very skillful in administering 

 the twilled technic. From examples reproduced by W. H. Holmes it 



will be seen that in the ancient 



OPEN CHECKERWOKK. 



6tli An. Kept. Bur. of Ethnol., flg. 291, after 

 W. H. Holmes. 



Fig. 4. 

 diagonal oe twilled work. 



Report U.S.N.M., 1884, pi. 15, fig. 28. 



Fig. 5. 

 diagonal or twilled work. 



Report U.S.N.M., 1884, pi. 57, fig. 93. 



weaving of the Mississippi Valley, in its southern portions, the weft 

 would not pass over the same number of warp elements that it passed 

 under. On the specimens shown the weft goes over one and under 

 three, or the opposite, each time and each way (figs. 6 and 7). Won- 

 derful effects in this variation of the numbers of elements included are 

 to be seen on Fijian basketry (fig. 8). 



