DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 285 



and pot baskets, and a kind of flat-bottomed "bowl, a few inches deep and sometimes 

 18 inches across. The Panamint Indians of California also make loosely woven bird 

 cages of these withes. Frederick V. Coville gives the following interesting account 

 of this manufacture in a paper on the Panamint Indians of California in the American 

 Anthropologist, October, 1892. which will serve to illustrate the methods employed 

 by North American Indians in the manufacture of "willow ware** or baskets, etc., 

 from withes of Salix and other species : 



All these wickerwork utensils are woven by the squaws at the cost of a great deal 

 of time, care, and skill. The materials are very simple. They consist of the year- 

 old shoots of some species of tough willow, commonly Salix lasiandra: the year-old 

 shoots of the aromatic sumac. Rhus trilobate; the long, black, slender, flexible horns 

 on the mature pods of the unicorn plant, Martynia louisiana. locally known as devil 

 horns, and the long, red roots of the tree yucca. Yucca breri folia. These materials 

 give three types of color — the white of the willow and sumac, the black of the devil 

 horns, and the red of the yucca roots. This last material, although it has a strong 

 fiber and a pretty red color, is rarely used, for it is too thick to plat closely and the 

 resulting fabric is full of interstices. Sumac and willow are prepared for use in the 

 same way. The bark is removed from the fresh shoots by luting it loose at the end 

 and tearing it off. The woody portion is scraped to remove bud protuberances and 

 other inequalities of the surface, and is then allowed to dry. These slender pieces 

 of wood, that they may be distinguished from the other elements of basket materials, 

 will be called withes. The second element is prepared from the same plants. A 

 squaw selects a fresh shoot, breaks off the too slender upper portion, and bites one 

 end so that it starts to split into three nearly equal parts. Holding one of these 

 parts in her teeth and one in either hand, she pulls them apart, guiding the split 

 with her ringers so dexterously that the whole shoot is divided into three equal even 

 portions. Taking one of these, by a similar process she splits off the pith and the 

 adjacent less flexible tissue from the inner face, and the bark from the outer, leaving 

 a pliant, strong, flat strip of young willow or sumac wood. This is here designated 

 iv strand. Both withes and strands may be dried and kept for months and probably 

 even for several years, but before being used they are always soaked in water. The 

 pack baskets and some, at least, of the water baskets are made of these strands and 

 withes. They begin at the bottom with two layers of withes superimposed and 

 fastened by their middles at right angles. The free ends are bent upward, and in 

 and out between them the strands are woven, new withes being inserted as the basket 

 widens. An attempt at ornamentation is frequently made by retaining the bark on 

 some of the strands or by staining them, and by slightly varying the "weave." A 

 squaw commonly occupies an entire month constructing one such basket. The plan 

 of the pot baskets and plates is very different from that of the pack baskets. The 

 materials are all carefully selected and prepared. They consist of willow or sumac 

 strands like those described above, but narrower and of the finest quality, similar 

 black strands from the devil horns, and the long-jointed, slender stems of a native 

 grass, Epicampes rig ens. The strands of devil horns are exceedingly tough, of a coal- 

 black, very persistent color, and attain a length of from 4 to 10 inches. The grass 

 is particularly adapted to this use from its firm texture and the fact that the portion 

 above the uppermost joint, which alone is used, is very long, often 18 inches. Start- 

 ing from a central point a bundle of two or three grass stems and one very slender 

 withe is sewed by a willow strand to the part already finished. The process is very 

 similar to the crocheting of a circular-lamp mat. At the proper point the bundle is 

 drawn more tightly, so that the remainder of the spiral forms the sides of the basket. 

 The wall has the thickness, therefore, of one of these bundles, and is composed of a 

 continuous spiral of them. The willow withe furnishes a strong hold for the stitches, 

 and the punctures are made by an iron awl. When such an instrument can not be 

 obtained an admirable equivalent is substituted in the form of a stout, horny-cactus 

 spine from the devil's pincushion, Echinacactus polycephalus, set in a head of hard 



