The basketry of the Mission Indians is well known, and that of the Cahuilla has been described in detail. 11 Considering its importance in the life of the people, it is remarkable for the small number of weaves, forms, and materials to which it is confined. The ordinary materials are not more than three: a grass, Epicampes rigens, for the warp; and for the woof either a reed-grass, Juncus robustus (or lesenerii), or sumac, Rhus trilobata. The fibre of the palm, Neowashingtonia filamentosa, is also sometimes employed today, but its former use is doubtful. There appears to have been only one dye in common use, a black which is produced either from the elder or from a species of Sueda. Yellow, red, brown, and even greenish shades are ordinarily all obtained by using different portions of the stem of the Juncus, which between its root and top passes through several quite different colors. All the ordinary forms of basketry
Pl. 1) and caps, in the diagonal-twined or double-warp weave so characteristic of the Shoshoneans of the Plateau. A basket made in this way may occasionally be found in the possession of the Cahuilla; but they appear not to have practiced the weave themselves.
The Cahuilla openwork baskets (Pl. 1) may appropriately be described as irregular in technique, rather than as strictly in the simple single-warp twined weave. The simplest form of twining predominates, but in all specimens examined is more or less interspersed with double-warp twining and twining on zigzagging warp. Two warp strands are frequently treated for awhile as a unit; then they may diverge and each be twined around independently; or, one may be bent to the side, be wound with the adjacent warp rod for a course or two, and then return to its former neighbor. Sometimes this alternate zig-zag warp twining is carried out fairly regularly over a considerable part of the basket, but this is unusual. The principal attempt seems to be to get the interstices in the basket about equally far part, and to accomplish this end warp stems are united, separated, and reunited at will. Hence the invariably ragged and rough appearance of these baskets.
Coiled weaving on a definite three-rod foundation of woody stems, and similar coiling on single rods,—the two most important coiled `weaves of northern California,—are not used at all by the Cahuilla or other Mission Indians.
Large granaries for storing mesquite are a conspicuous feature of the surroundings of a desert Cahuilla settlement. (Pl. 2.) They are from three to six feet across, without top or bottom, placed on a layer of brush, and covered with the same. They are sometimes set on the ground, but more usually raised on a rude scaffold of poles. These granaries can be called baskets only by courtesy, as they show no distinct weave, slender branches being simply intertwined as in a bird's nest. The material used in them, given by Dr. Barrows as Artemisia ludoviciana,
baskets being begun around a hoop. This is obviously the easier as well as the quicker method of manufacture in coiled basketry. Among the Yurok of Northwestern California, whose mortar baskets are twined, the basket is begun as if it were to have a rude bottom, and only when ready for use is the central portion cut out.
The basketry cap of the Cahuilla (Pl. 7), is like that of the other Mission Indians, and of a type extending at least as far north as the Yokuts of central California. It is rather large, flat-topped, and of coiled weave. Its general appearance is that of the frustum of a cone, horizontally corrugated. It is not worn habitually, as are the basketry caps of northernmost California and Oregon, but only in carrying burdens. The load is contained in the carrying net, the strap of which passes over the forehead.
The Chemehuevi cap is of a different type, being twined instead of coiled, somewhat peaked or conical instead of flat-topped, and lighter and more flexible than the thick coiled Cahuilla cap. One of these Chemehuevi hats, which the owner was unable to part with, was ornamented with a red and black design resembling a basketry pattern, but painted on. A similar cap, also in diagonal-twined weave, was obtained from a Cahuilla family at Alamo. (Pl. 7, on right.) This piece, however, had the design worked into the basketry. This Chemehuevi form of cap is of the type found among the Shoshonean tribes of the Great Basin, and the piece here mentioned could be practically duplicated by Ute specimens.
While the basketry cap is characteristic of many parts of California, it is not found over the whole state. In the region in northernmost California in which twined basketry is exclusively used, caps are habitually worn by the women, whether carrying loads or otherwise engaged, and are apt to be the most highly ornamented and carefully made articles of basketry. In the northeastern corner of the state, as among the Modoc, they have the shape of a truncated cone. In northwestern California, among the Yurok and Hupa, they are lower and somewhat rounded, but all the better made ones are flat-topped. South of this belt across northernmost California, beginning with the region in which coiled basketry first appears, and extending to beyond the latitude of San Francisco, basketry caps are not made. The Pomo, Wintun, and Maidu 13 of the coast and Sacramento
A leaching basket is mentioned by Dr. Barrows, but none was seen, and no definite description could be obtained. Possibly the twined openwork baskets of juncus answered this purpose.
The seed-beater (Pl. 3) may appropriately be included under the consideration of forms of basketry, although the Cahuilla seed-beater, which is nothing but a frame of a few sticks, presents but little appearance of basket work. The specimens obtained have the sticks wound together with strips of cloth. Either strips of bark or string might have been employed for this purpose in former days. In size and shape the Cahuilla seed-beaters resemble those used elsewhere in California, but they are made of an unusually small number of sticks and are peculiar in the parallel arrangement of these along the middle of the encircling hoop. The seed-beater of most California tribes is made in circular openwork twining on radiating ribs.
All the foregoing forms of basketry serve some special or limited purpose, and, as has been said, to several of them the term basketry can be applied by courtesy rather than in fact. If all these special forms are excluded, and consideration is given
Pl. 4), is most commonly something over a foot in diameter. Its curvature is very slight. It is employed as a plate or tray, and for winnowing, and has also been described as used to gather the seeds struck down on it by the seed-beater.
The shallow basket (Pl. 5) is deeper than the preceding, but flatter than the large deep basket. It is called sewhalal, according to Dr. Barrows; or kaputmal, the same as the deep basket. It has about the same diameter as the flat basket, is some three or four to six or eight inches deep, and has the form of a shallow flaring bowl. The bottom is nearly flat. The sides usually rise in a gradually ascending curve, or more rarely meet the bottom at a distinct angle. The uses of this form of basket naturally shade into those of the flat basket. It is a convenient receptacle for food. It is also used for parching corn or seeds. A specimen may occasionally be found of which the interior is entirely charred.
Pl. 6) is much like the shallow one except that its sides rise more steeply and to a greater height. Its usual shape is that of an inverted truncated cone, of which the altitude is equal to the smaller diameter and about half that of the greater diameter. Besides being used to hold food and other articles, this flat-bottomed coiled basket is the substitute of the Cahuilla and Mission Indians for the pointed twined carrying-basket found elsewhere in California. It is not so shaped that it can be properly carried on the back merely by means of a strap passing around it and over the forehead. With the Cahuilla form of basket this strap becomes part of a net, in which the basket rests. In reality it is this net and not the basket that is the burden-carrier: the basket is only a secondary receptacle for objects that the meshes of the net will not retain.
The carrying net is not confined to Southern California, but it is only there that the shape of the burden basket makes it a practical necessity. In central California the net is rather a convenience, and the basket is often used without it.
The small globular basket (Pl. 7) is the least common of the four types. It serves to keep small utensils and trinkets. The diameter is usually somewhat greater than the height. The mouth is of the same size as the bottom, or sometimes smaller. No attempt is made to form a neck or constriction that will produce a lip, or an urn-shaped vessel. Occasionally one of these small globular baskets is found with a thong across its mouth by which it can be suspended. All baskets of this type that have been seen are ornamented; but the design is like that of other shapes, except in more frequently presenting a vertical arrangement instead of a disposition of the pattern in a horizontal band.
All the Cahuilla basketry that is made for use is coarsely constructed. The wrapping of the woof is never close, and at times is very far apart. The baskets are not intended to hold water, and it runs through them readily. Upon being thoroughly wetted they are probably more nearly water-tight, but it is apparent that the use of pottery renders attention to this quality unnecessary. The same coarseness which characterizes the woof extends also to the warp. While the warp material is the same as that used by the southern San Joaquin valley tribes,
Pl. 6.) Occasionally a design is in two colors, most often black combined with reddish or brownish yellow. At other times the two colors occur on different parts of the same basket.
The small globular baskets are exceptional in another respect than their pattern arrangement. In all flat, shallow, and deep baskets, as well as in caps and mortar baskets, the direction of the coil, as one looks into the basket, is from left to right, or clock-wise; in all globular baskets it is from right to left. A somewhat similar difference has been noticed by Dr. Dixon among the Maidu, 16 except that among these Indians flat baskets run from right to left. Mr. S. A. Barrett has noted that among the Porno the coil is always clockwise, whatever the shape of the basket. These striking differences, which evidently are typical of tribes, and the reason for which is unknown, have led to an examination of all the coiled basketry from California in the University Museum, with the following results. In all cases, whether the basket is used with bottom down or with bottom up, and whether the pattern is on the inside or on the outside, the direction of the coil is observed as the hollow of the basket is looked into.
The coiled baskets of the Wailaki and of the Yuki all run
It thus appears that other than among the Wailaki and Yuki the normal direction of the coil in California basketry is clockwise, except that in three groups of tribes certain classes of baskets, and those only, also run anti-clockwise. Among the Maidu and Miwok it is the flat baskets that are exceptional, among the Yokuts and Mono the bottle-necks, among the Mission Indians the globular baskets. The differences in shape between the baskets that are thus made an exception of, render it difficult to conceive a technological reason for the turning of the coil in the unusual direction. It can be imagined that it might be easier to make a basket with constricted mouth by working in one way than in the other, and that the Maidu and Miwok choice of the unusual direction for their flat baskets was due to their holding such baskets inverted during the process of manufacture; but
41:11 Barrows, Ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California, 1900, 40; Schumacher, in Putnam, Wheeler Survey, VII, 247. 44:12 Barrows, p. 44. 44:13 Professor Dixon Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. XVII, 162, 1905, states that the northern Maidu women formerly wore basket hats; but no specimens have been seen by him or by the author and none appear ever to have been collected. 45:14 Barrows, 41: called kaputil. The stem of this word appears, with the diminutive suffix -mal, in kaput-mal, obtained as the name of ordinary bowl-shaped baskets, as given below. 49:15 Present series, II, 150, 1905. 49:16 The Northern Maidu, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XVII, 146, 1905. 50:16a Since this paper was put in type, Dr. C. V. Hartman, Curator of Ethnology and Archaeology in the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg, writes as follows regarding a collection of Chemehuevi baskets in that museum: "Of the flat baskets, ten have the coils clockwise, ten anti-clockwise. Of the more or less cylindrical baskets, five have the coils clockwise, fifteen anticlockwise. Mr. C. P. Wilcomb has verified the observation." It thus appears that the Chemehuevi follow no consistent rule, but that the prevailing tendencies among them are the same as the rule of the Yokuts and Mono.