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"