50 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



widely found among the eastern Indians although the Iroquois basket 

 seems to have been higher. 



The hominy sifter is woven in the same manner and the State 

 Museum has specimens from the Cherokee and Shawnee which are 



Fig. 7 Various forms of hulling baskets 



similar, in all details to the Iroquois baskets. Both of these peoples 

 of course have been in contact with the Iroquois at diflferent periods. 

 The Delaware sifting and washing baskets were often made of shreds 

 of bark but the Iroquois preferred the inner splints of the black ash. 



Hominy sifter, Oniius'tawanes.^ The Seneca term means 

 coarse kernels. This basket is of the same weave as the hulling 

 basket. It is a foot square at the top and tapers down to lo inches 

 at the bottom. The bottom is sievelike, the openings being about 

 ^ inch square. The hominy corn cracked in the mortar is sifted 

 through this basket and the coarser grains that remain are thrown 

 back in the mortar to be repounded and resifted until all are of the 

 requisite size. 



Meal sifter,- Niu'nyo^'sthasa^^ The Indian word is derived 

 from niwa'a, small, and oniius'ta' kernels. In size and shape this 

 basket is like the hominy sifter. The splints of which it is woven, 

 however, are very fine, being about tV inch wide. Except for 

 decorative purposes, no baskets were ever woven finer. The 

 niu'nyo"s'thasa' was used for sifting corn meal for bread puddings. 

 Sometimes it was used to sift other things, such as maple sugar, 

 salt, seeds etc. So much labor was required to make one of these 

 meal sifters that many of the Iroquois ceased to weave them when 

 cheap wire sieves could be obtained, the price of the meal sieve 

 basket being as high as $i [see fig. 8]. 



1 Yuno°'owa'nes in Mohawk. 



2 " They have little baskets which they call notassen, and which are made 

 of a kind of hemp the same as fig frails, which they make to serve as 

 sieves." De Vries, p. 187. 



8 Niga'te'sera, flour sieve, in Mohawk. 



