Diverse as were the purposes for which basketry was utilized
basket "forms" were closely related to solid geometry: e.g. the
cube, cone, sphere, cylinder, etc. These purposes varied from
wallets, hats, bags and mats on the Coast to "burden baskets" and
Spoons, cups and cooking utensils, storage receptables and cradle
boards, among the tribes of the Interior. Pottery and metal ves-
sels being unknown throughout this area before contact with white
men, wood was ingeniously employed on the Coast for all domestic
and many other purposes but was not correspondingly available to
the tribes of the Interior, hence the substitution of "coiled"
basketry.

Two types of basketry were used in this Province: Handwoven
and Coiled.

1. Handwoven Basketry

Five varieties were in use: checkerwork; twilled or diagonal;
wickerwork; wrapped weft: and twined.

The Haida and Tsimsyan women used prepared spruce roots for
their basketry and rivalled the Tlingit of Alaska in their
elaborate and delicate workmanship. The Haida depended for
decoration on a combination of weaves, but the Tsimsyan frequently
introduced a band of black on their wallets, baskets, etc.
Triumphs of skilled weaving were the Haida hats and wallets, of
which the finest specimens of the former had crests or other
symbolic designs painted on them, in contradistinction to the
Nootkans, who wove on their hats the one design permitted,
namely, that of whale hunting, in which Dr. F. Boas detected
a rather primitive attempt at perspective. (Plate 15, Figure 6.)

The Kwakiutl and Nootkan women excelled in the weaving of
large cedar bark mats, using wrapped, twined and birdcage weave
for their fish baskets, nets and large mats.

In some cases, the Bella Coola women resorted to whale
Sinews or threads of dried kelp as warps for their baskets or
mats, the wefts consisting of cedar fibres; this combination
giving great strength to the products.

Coming southward from the spruce root area to the cedar
country the character of basketry changed from rigid to more
flexible surfaces, as shown in the checker and twilled matting
made by the Kwakiutl, Nootkan and Salish women. The Nootkan
women sometimes decorated their mats with black squares and
triangles, primitive designs rough but symbolic (Plate 15,
Figures 1 and 2); or merely by changes in the relative widths of
weft and warp strands. The Salish women of the Lower Fraser

= 70"