ABORIGINAL USE OF VVOOD*IN NEW YORK 163 



Charlevoix mentioned the aboriginal sled in Canada, but there is 

 no record of this in New York for transportation. Invention there 

 found other means of making burdens portable. The basket, of 

 course, had a foremost place, and its use in fishing has been men- 

 tioned. Ordinarily it contained many articles, large and small, and 

 its size was in proportion. When young, the writer often saw Onon- 

 daga women with huge baskets on their backs, out of which some- 

 times peered the faces of one or two children, hemmed in by other 

 things. The long burden or basket strap, drawn across the forehead, 

 easily held them in place. Within a few years he has seen a squaw 

 passing between two rows of corn, plucking the ears on either hand, 

 and throwing them over her shoulders into the basket. Only the 

 older women now carry the basket thus, and they but rarely. The 

 Onondagas call it ka-ah'-sah. 



The subject of native basketry has attracted much attention of 

 late, and several valuable works treating of this, have been pub- 

 lished. The most elaborate of these is by Prof. Otis T. Mason, 

 issued by the Smithsonian Institution and entitled Aboriginal Ameri- 

 can Basketry. All classes of baskets, and all parts of the country are 

 systematically treated in this work, and the absence of eastern speci- 

 mens is conspicuous. It is probable that these never rivaled western 

 baskets, and yet there were early examples here of some artistic 

 merit. Gookin described New England baskets, large and small, 

 made of rushes, coarse and silk grasses, corn husks, wild hemp and 

 the bark of trees. " Many of these are very neat and artificial, with 

 the portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes and flowers upon them in 

 colors. Coiled basket ware has been attributed to the early Ojibwas 

 and other Algonquins. Some early patterns have been reclaimed 

 from impressions on New York pottery. Professor Mason says: 



All along our northern border and in many parts of Canada the Iro- 

 quois and Chippewa now fabricate baskets from the ash, birch, linden, 

 and other white woods, and the vernal or sweet grass (Savastana 

 o d o r a t a). The method of manufacture is universally the same ; 

 it is the plainest in-and-out checker and wicker weaving. The 

 basketry is far from monotonous, however, for the greatest variety 

 is secured by difference of form, of color, of the relative size of the 

 parts, and of ornamentation. In form the baskets run the whole 



