COLLECTORS OF AMEEICAN^ BASKETEY MASON. 



[10] 



Various patterns are effected on the surface— clouds, mythical birds, 

 and symbols connected with worship. Wickerwork has pleasing 

 effects combined with diagonal and other work (fig. 12). It has passed 

 into modern industry through the cultivation of osiers, rattan, and 

 such plants, for market baskets, covers for glass bottles, and in ribbed 

 cloth, wherein a flexible weft is worked on a rigid warp. Also, good 

 examples are now produced b}^ the Algonkin tribes of New England 

 and eastern Canada. 



For commercial purposes, wicker baskets precisel}^ like those of 

 the Abenaki Indians are thus made. 



The white-oak t i m- 

 ber is brought to the 

 yard in sticks running 

 from 6 to 40 inches in 

 diameter, and from 4 to 

 18 feet long. It is first 

 sawed into convenient 

 lengths, then split with 

 a maul and wedges into 

 fourths or sixteenths. 

 The bark is then stripped 

 off with a drawing 

 knife. 



The next process is 

 cutting it into bolts at 

 what is called the split- 

 ting horse. These are 

 taken to the so-called 

 shaving horse, to be 

 shaved down with a 

 drawing knife into per- 

 fectly smooth, even 

 bolts, of the width and 

 length desired. These are then placed in the steam box and steamed 

 for a half hour or so, which makes the splints more pliable; they 

 are taken thence to the splint knife, which is" arranged so that one 

 person, by changing the position of the knife, can make splints of 

 any desired thickness from that of paper to that of a three-fourth 

 inch hoop. 



The oyster baskets and most small baskets have the bottom splints 

 laid one over another, and are plainly woven. 



But the round-bottomed baskets, used for grain and truck, are made 

 by taking from 10 to 18 ribs and lajnng them across each other at the 

 middle in radiating form, and weaving around with a narrow thin 

 splint, until the desired size for the bottom is reached, when the 



Fig. 12, 

 mat of the hopl in diagonal and wicker. 



6th An. Rept. Bur. of Ethnol., fig. 286, after W. H. Holmes. 



