WOMEN'S HANDICRAFTS

BASKETRY, WOVEN, COILED AND IMBRICATED

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References:

Plate 15, Figure 1. Cedar Bark Mat - Flounder

design. Nootkan.
Plate 15, Figure 3. Cedar Bark Mat-Wave design. Nootkan.
Plate 15, Figure 5. Basket Design- Lightning

Snake. Nootkan.
Plate 15, Figure 6. Chief's Hat- Whale Hunt de-

sign. Nootkan.
Plate 16, Figure 1. Head with Hair and Teeth. Lillooet.
Plate 16, Figure 2. Conventionalized Kagles. Sadaish:
Plate 16, Figure 3. Butterfly design. Salish.
Plate 16, Figure 4. Arrowheads. Lower Fraser.
Eiove monet ounce > Necklaces desmenr. Thompson.
Plate 16, Figure 6. Circling Mouth. Lillooet.
Plate 16, Figure 7. Arrowheads, Wild Geese,

Deer: Chilcotin.
Plate 16, Figure 8. Arrowheads, Hour-glasses. Chilcotin.
Plate 16, Figure 9. String of Beads. Trees, Deer

and Fawns. Droppers. Chilcotin.
Plate 18, Figure 5. Cedar Bark Mat. Dog-—fish

crest. Haida.

The birds of the world have been described as the first in-
structors of human beings in the art of weaving baskets. Nearer
our own times it is permissible to say that this earliest of all
types of weaving was the mother of primitive loom work and, in
the opinion of competent authorities, also of quill and beadwork.
Dr. Mason (1902, p. 312) points out that unknown to themselves
these basket makers are botanists in the gathering of required
materials; colourists in the selection of reliable vegetable dyes;
designers in the forms assumed by their skill; poets in their em
bodiment of ideals; and skilled craftsmen in their products. The
high degree of craftsmanship also conduces to durability; for
cedar bark and fibre which were the preferred materials are least
susceptible to rot among those available. Thus the lives of
"coiled" baskets for example might be reckoned at half a century
or even longer, in spite of their use for the transport of heavy
burdens, for carrying water and storing it, as well as for cook-
ing food. Few people realize that the superior basketry "weaves,"
as well as the "coils" of those presently to be described, were
practically watertight, a fact due to the uniformity and expert
control of warp and weft in the one method or of the "coils" in
the other.

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