Basket-work of the North American Aborigines |
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Basket-Work of the North American Aborigines (Classic Reprint) Otis Tufton Mason No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Aleutian ALEUTIAN ISLANDS alternate Apaches Apocynum cannabinum bands bark basket trays basket-maker Basket-work basketry bast body color border bottle bottom braid California Clallams Coahuila coarse coiled and whipped Coiled basket bowl Collected in Arizona Collected in Southern cross Edward Palmer Eskimo fabric fastening fish-trap grass Haidas inch of Fig inclosing Indians inside J. W. Powell loops Makah baskets Mason mats Mokis Mount Saint Elias Museum number National Museum Norton Sound ornamentation is produced osier Pai Utes Pimos plaited PLATE pricker radiating warp Report Nat rods row of twining Sahaptin sewing showing the method side single splint Southern Utah specimen splints spruce root square inch stitches strips surface Swan Tinné tribes twilled twilled effect Twined basket twined weaving twined weft variety wallet ware warp splints warp sticks warp strands warp threads warp twigs water-tight weft width woof yucca yucca fiber yucca leaf Zuñi
Popular passages
Page 11 - ... pattern. In most of the Makah baskets the straight piece is laid inside the uprights, but there are examples in which it is laid outside resembling the regular plaited stitch. The Indians of this coast prior to the advent of the white man made heavy and beautiful blankets of the wool of the Rocky Mountain sheep, and of the hair of animals killed in the chase, dyed in different colors. The patterns are all geometric, and are, in fact, woven mosaics, each figure being inserted separately by twisting...
Page 14 - ... from the sale of their wares. The colors are of native manufacture — red, yellow, blue, green, alternating with the natural color of the wood. To begin with the rudest, let us take a dozen or 16 strips of paper half an inch wide and cross them so as to have one half perpendicular to the other half, woven in checker at the center and extending to form the equal arms of a cross. Bend up these arms perpendicular with the woven checker and pass a continuous splint, similar to the framework, round...
Page xx - California women make hats of a similar pattern, but much finer. The warp twigs converge at the bottom and additional ones are added as the texture widens. The weft splints are carried around in pairs and twined so as to inclose a pair of vertical twigs, producing a twilled effect something like that of the softer ware of the Haidae and Clallams.
Page 13 - The mode of preparation is as follows: The twigs are soaked in water to soften them, and to loosen the bark, which is scraped off by the females. The twigs are then split, by the use of the mouth and both hands. Their baskets are built up by a succession of small rolls of grass stems over which these twigs...
Page 10 - It is not astonishing that a material so easily woven should have found its way so extensively in the industries of this stock of Indians. Neither should we wonder that the checker pattern in weaving should first appear on the west coast among the only people possessing a material eminently adapted to this form of manipulation. It is only another example of that beautiful harmony between / man and nature which delights the anthropologist at / every step of his journey.
Page 14 - Among the Indians of British Guiana." The specimens in hand are all of the twill pattern, wrought from a brown vegetable fiber which shows the same on both sides. This twill is used with good effect in the diagonally woven cassava strainers, which may be contracted in length by a corresponding increase of the width. When the grated cassava is packed into this strainer it is suspended and a great weight fastened to the bottom. The same device in cloth is used by country housewives in making curds....
Page 9 - Special attention should be paid to the painted ornamentation on these hats (Figs. 14 and 15) showing head, wings, feet, and tail of the duck, laid on in black and red in the conventional manner of ornamentation in vogue among the Haidas and used in the reproduction of their various totems on all of their houses, wood and slate carvings, and the ornamentation of their implements.* *A very interesting instance of survival is to be seen in the rag carpets of these Indians.
Page xxiv - Utes, made by coiling a splint and t lii.ii •trip of yucca, bast, or osier, and whipping them with split osier. The sewing passes over the two elements of the coil in progress and through the upper element of the coil below, looping always under the subjacent stitches. Ornamentation produced by working into the fabric triangles with strips of martynia or dyed splints. The work is very regular and the texture water-tight, resembling the work of the Apaches and California Indians. The fastening off...
Page xxx - The Herring Bone Finish. — The story of this stitch is fully told in Indian Basketry, pages 109 and no. It is made by a single splint which is passed under the sewing of the last coil and then drawn over it and backward. It is then passed under again, upward and forward, first in advance of the starting point. Thus by sewing backward and forward, as one coils a kite string, this beautiful braided finishing stitch is produced. It is not only beautiful : its usefulness is manifest when it is known...
Page 14 - In the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana are many Indians still living, remnants of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminóles, removed fifty years ago into the Indian Territory.