302 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



loosened. The mass is then pift in a flat basket tray and the hulls 

 blown off." (Am. Nat. 1878, p. 594.) 



In Schoolcraft's History of Indian Tribes, pt. 5, pis. 26, 27, will be seen 

 Indian women gathering seeds in conical baskets, beating the plants 

 with a spoon-shaped wand towards the basket, held in the left hand, 

 with the mouth of the basket just uuder the plants (Figs. 43, 44). The 

 baskets are made in every respect like the conoidal hats and the fans 

 are made of twigs closely woven on the same pattern. 



The water bottles belong to the coiled and whipped structure. As 

 before mentioned, this style can be made coarse or fine, according to 

 the material and size of the coil and the outer thread. If two twigs of 

 uniform thickness are carried around, the stitch will be batchy and 

 open ; but if one of the twigs is larger than the other, or if yucca or 

 other fiber replace one of them and narrower sewing material be used, 

 the texture will be much finer. These bottles differ in shape; one class 

 has round bottoms, another long, pointed bottoms ; one has wide 

 mouths, another small mouths; one class has a little osier handle on 

 the side of the mouth like a pitcher, but the majority have one or two 

 loops of wood, horse-hair, or osier fastened on one side for a carrying- 

 strap. All of these are quite heavy, having been dipped in pitch. 

 The same form is found among the Apaches, Mohaves, Mokis, and Eio 

 Grande Pueblos; but it is not improbable that they were obtained from 

 the Utes in barter or by purchase. 



The basket trays of the Utes do not differ essentially in general style 

 from those of the Gila River tribes, but they are much coarser. Among 

 the coiled basket trays in the collection accredited to the Utes are in- 

 deed two styles, but one of them resembles so much those of their 

 Apache neighbors on the south as to raise the suspicion that they were 

 obtained by barter. However that may be, we are permitted to call 

 them the Ute pattern and the Apache pattern. The Ute basket tray is 

 made like the Ute water-bottle. A bundle of grass stems, two, three, 

 or four, are coiled around and sewed to the upper twig of the coil just 

 below. By the way in which the coil turns it is easy to tell whether 

 the upper or the under surface was towards the sewer, the work always' 

 necessarily moving to the left hand. As a matter of fact, most of these 

 coarse baskets were built up with the concave towards the workman, 

 that side presenting a more finished appearance. On the other hand, 

 the finer baskets, here called Apache, are coiled the other way. The 

 foundation is a slender bundle of yucca fiber or a twig and yucca leaf 

 combination, which enables the workman to produce a compact water- 

 tight stitch similar to that in the California baskets just described. 

 The Apaches understand thoroughly the use of this stitch, and their 

 ornamental patterns in black have the greatest variety. The ornament 

 of one specimen in the collection, supposed to be Apache, but possibly 

 made by some California tribes, consists of a series of spiral bands 



