248 



BASKET-WORK. 



Bottom of a basket. 



grass is split, and some of it is dyed in different shades, usually brown,* with which to 

 produce the figures, mostly straight-lined or zigzag. The grass of which the body is 



made is worked in its natural state. The 

 basket progresses from the centre of the bot- 

 tom, as shown in Fig. 121,. which represents 

 that part of natural size for baskets not ex- 

 ceeding a foot in diameter, while the thickness 

 of the coil of larger ones is slightly increased by 

 adding more of the grass of which it is made. 

 The beginning of the stitch, for which the hole 

 is made by a common bone needle or borer, is 

 shown in Fig. 122 a, and is made by fastening 

 one end of the binding by the succeeding over- 

 lying stitches, and is thus neatly disposed of 

 on the inside of the basket. Fig. 122 b shows 

 the manner in which the cods and stitches 

 are arranged and the way they are bound 

 together. When the length of the binding is 

 used up, the end is similarly secured as at the 

 beginning, Fig. 122 c, or, at the finishing of the basket, under the preceding stitches. 

 The shape of the basket is easily formed by lengthening or shortening the circuits of 



the coil, and by changing the stitches 

 slightly towards the side of the con- 

 cavity to be formed. In forming the 

 bottom of the baskets the split twigs 

 of a shrub [probably Elms womaMca] 

 are generally employed in place of 

 the Juncus, probably for the greater 

 strength. Often this material is 

 used for the sides as well as the 

 bottom, but generally the Juncus is 

 used after about a dozen or twenty 

 coils have been made. The Juncus 

 is also used without splitting, from 

 which is made a coarse basket with 

 loose meshes similar to a net, but with- 

 Method of winding the grass in basket-work. out knots. 



The Indians from Southern Mexico to Northern- California make for 

 their use hair-brushes of very much the same character, and as several of 

 these brushes have been found in the California graves a brief notice of 



*Dr. Palmer informs me that the Indians of Southern California make a black dye by steep- 

 ing in water plants of the Sueda diffusa, and that a yellowish brown dye is derived in the same way 

 from plants of the Dalea Emoryi and D. polyadenia. Both of these dyes are, according to Dr. Palmer, 

 used by the Indians at Agua Caliente for dyeing the rushes of which baskets are made. See also Br. 

 Palmer's notes on plants used for dyeing, in American Naturalist for Oct. 1878, p. 653. 



