66 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



and the bark of cedar interwoven in a cone form with a knob 

 of the same shape at the top. It has no brim, but is held on 

 the head by a string passing under the chin and tied to a small 

 rim inside the hat. The colors are generally black and white 

 only, and these are made into squares, triangles, and sometimes 

 rude figures of canoes and seamen harpooning whales." 



When Captain Cook visited Vancouver Island during his 

 famous voyage of 1 776-1 780, he found the same form of head 

 covering worn by the Indians of Nootka Sound, and on one 

 of the plates in the second volume of the octavo edition 

 (London, 1784) is a drawing of a woman with a hat of this 

 form. This is reproduced at b, Plate I. 



Cook writes (p. 242) that the "natives wear a hat like a 

 truncated cone or a flower pot, made of very fine matting, orna- 

 mented with a round knob or a bunch of 

 leather tassels, having a string passing 

 under the chin to prevent it blowing off," 

 and on page 266, "The whole process of 

 their whale-fishery has been represented 

 ... on the caps they wear." 



It is probable that this kind of head cover- 

 ing was prevalent from Nootka Sound to the 

 Columbia River, at least in the coast region. 

 The peculiar manner in which the cedar-bark strips and the 

 grass spires are manipulated (Fig. 1) to form the design is seen 

 in the modern basketry of the Skokomish, and is probably found 

 in other basketry of the Puget Sound region. It occurs in the 

 basketry of the Hooper valley and other northern California 

 Indians, as will be seen on examination of the basket caps and 

 old cooking bowls made from shredded pine roots and squaw 

 grass. This squaw grass of the Hupa and Shasta Indians 

 seems to be identical with the bear grass of Lewis and Clark. 



The conventional representation of the canoe shown in the 

 whaling scenes upon Plate I is found upon the modern basketry 

 of the Makah Indian of Cape Flattery, Washington, the southern- 

 most of the Wakashan (Nootka) family. 



The hats in the Peabody Museum are all of twined weaving, 

 and are made principally of cedar bark and grass spires. The 



