246 ASPHALTUM-COVERED BASKET-WORK. 



The top of this vessel is also preserved, and shows that the basket had a 

 narrow bottle-shaped neck of about 1 inch in diameter, on which was a 

 flaring mouth 2 inches wide, thickly coated with asphaltum. Portions of a 

 similarly-made vessel were also obtained by Mr. Schumacher from a shell- 

 mound on the island of Santa Catalina (P. M. 13399). On one of the 

 fragments of the latter there is a large circular piece of abalone shell, which 

 is held in place by the asphaltum 



Mr. Henshaw has called my attention to the following statement by 

 Humboldt,* relating to the Indians about Santa Barbara at the time of the 

 establishment of the missions in 1769 : " They constructed large houses of 

 a pyramidal form close to one another. They appeared benevolent and 

 hospitable ; and they presented the Spaniards with vases very curiously 

 wrought of stalks of rushes. M. Bonpland possesses several of these vases 

 in his collections, which are covered within with a very thin layer of asphal- 

 tum, that renders them impenetrable to water or the strong liquors which 

 they may happen to contain." 



Mr. Bancroft,! in his account of the Indians of Southern California, 

 also mentions, on the authority of Mi*. Reid, that "the vessels in use for 

 liquids were roughly made of rushes and plastered on the outside and in with 

 bitumen or pitch, called by them sanot." It is undoubtedly the remains of 

 such vessels as these that were found by Dr. Yarrow and Mr. Schumacher. 



I now have to call attention to the few remains of baskets that have 

 been obtained from the California graves. It has already been mentioned 

 that among the articles preserved by the copper dipper taken from a grave 

 on the island of Santa Catalina, there was a small basket found in it, 

 which was evidently used as a cap, and was still in a good state of preser- 

 vation. Portions of similar fine basket-work were also obtained from other 

 graves at the same place (P. M. 13133), and a few fragments were found in 

 a charred condition in the shellheap on the island (P. M. 14854). 



There is also in the Peabody Museum (9312) a small fragment of a 

 basket, identical in character with the one found in the dipper. This was 



* New Spain, vol. ii, p. 297. 



+ Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. i, p. 408. The account l>y Mr. Eeid is from the Los 

 Angeles Star. A similar basket, made water-tight hy a covering of pitch, was obtained from the Ute 

 Indians by Dr. Palmer. 



