USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Madisonville > Indian Village Site and Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio > Part 19
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1 For details of this stitch, see Mason, 1904, figure 197. A Basket-maker basket from Grand Gulch, in which the last inch of the terminal coil is done in "false-braid" is mentioned by Pepper (1902, p. 16); exactly the same treatment appears in s basket from Step House, Mess Verde (Nordenskiold, 1893. plate XLIV, 4); Diegueño and Kawis (southern California) tray baskets also have the last inch of coil in "false-braid" (Peabody Museum Collections).
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 22
b
C
a
WHITE DOG CAVE a, Covering for umbilical pad; b, c, Umbilical pads. (About {.)
.....
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bruising of the stone. This explanation is, of course, pure swork, but it seems to account satisfactorily for the presence e loops and for the excessive wear on the inside.
nols. As will be seen in the illustrations (plate 23, a, c, f) these ets are of lesser diameter than the trays and of much greater h; their bottoms are flat and the sides rise more or less steeply. largest is 14 inches wide at the mouth, by 8 inches deep. We ve that some of the larger bowls were used for boiling by the stone method, as two examples are heavily daubed with a ure of mud and ashes applied, apparently, to render them rtight; they also have a soiled and battered look and many nes that indicate hard use.
Trying Baskets. These are the largest of the coiled baskets, uring 28 to 30 inches in diameter at the top, by 17 to 20 inches . They have pointed bottoms, oval in cross-section; and ly flaring upper parts (plate 23, k, 1). By actual count of coils stitches to the inch these are the coarsest of the baskets, yet are as carefully and regularly woven as the finest; are very g, but flexible enough to adapt themselves to the curves of leck and shoulders of their bearers. There is no doubt that served as panniers for carrying loads on the back; their shape the use of similar forms by modern tribes are sufficient indica- . The identification, however, is rendered certain by the fact they all have pairs of loops, usually of human hair string, ed into their sides at the proper height for the attachment of bands. In two specimens these bands are still in place. The non use of these panniers to cover interments is, of course, a idary one.
ater Baskets. The excavations of 1916-1917 produced no e specimen of this type, yet fragments of oval bottoms of a weave than is usual in panniers seem to indicate that such ets were not rare. A fine example from Cave II, Kinboko, is ed in our former report. Dimensions: total height 17 inches, ;est diameter 142 inches, orifice 4} inches. It has an elongated , oval in cross-section. The upper part flares out and becomes d; it is constricted again at the top, and the orifice is small. e does not seem to have been a neck, but there is some evi- e that there was once a string-hinged cover. On opposite , just below the point of greatest diameter, are pairs of carry-
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BASKET-MAKER CAVES
ing loops made by twisting into a heavy cord eight or ten two- strand human hair strings. The entire inner surface of the basket is thickly pitched with pinon gum, and the same material has been daubed on such parts of the exterior as had begun to wear through. A design of small stepped units may be faintly made out on the upper curve.1
Trinket Baskets. These are neatly made little receptacles with round bodies and small orifices. The range of sizes and shapes is shown in the illustrations (plates 23, h, and 24, d). It is prob- able that these baskets were put to a variety of uses; many of those found in the graves contained small trinkets of one sort or another.
Decoration. Baskets of all the above types were ornamented with designs in black. Red elements, reported by Pepper 2 in Grand Gulch baskets, are not found in our collection. The designs are of great interest because they are without much doubt the oldest examples of basketry ornamentation that have yet come to light in the United States. Furthermore, they illustrate the deco- rative art of a people who preceded the pottery-making tribes of the region, and so may eventually be expected to throw light on the vexed question of whether or not southwestern pottery designs developed from those of basketry. We give, accordingly, all the decorations that are sufficiently well-preserved to copy (plate 24). These, together with the fine series of baskets figured by Pepper,' will give the reader a very good idea of the make-up of the designs. Descriptions of the patterns tell no more than do the pictures, and any attempt to supply symbolical meanings to designs as old as these would naturally be pure guesswork. We have made notes towards a comparative study of these and the designs of the baskets from the Plateau and Pacific Coast areas, but they are as yet far from complete, nor have we space in this publication to present the mass of data which has already accumulated. It may be said, however, that the art as a whole seems to find its nearest parallel in that of the central and northern California tribes. In technic, on the other hand, the baskets most closely resemble those of the Paiute.
1 Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 170 and plate 78.
: 1902, p. 15.
" Ibid., the same pictures may also be found in Mason, 1904, a more accessible publication, plates 84, 104, and 205 to 211 inclusive.
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 23
a
b
C
d
e
g
J
/
Baskets: All from White Dog Cave with the exception of h, which is from Cave 1, Kinboko Canyon, Marsh Pass. (About 1/16.)
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Twilled Basketry. The only specimen in this weave is a flexible bag-like basket of yucca leaves with flattened spherical body and small mouth. Although it is fragmentary, the following measure- ments are approximately correct: width 8} inches; depth 4} inches; diameter of aperture 4 inches. It is made of entire leaves of Yucca angustifolia; the butts of the leaves are turned outward over a heavy fiber cord that rings the mouth of the basket, and are fastened by twined strings. The long ends of the leaves are then plaited together, over-two-under-two, to form the body. The bottom is not woven, the last couple of inches of the leaves being simply laid across each other and tied in that position with string (plate 23, b).
Although the over-two-under-two weave is the same, this speci- men is entirely different from the twilled ring baskets so abundantly found in cliff-houses.1 The latter are always bowl-shaped and have a wooden hoop at the edge. They are fabricated upwards from the bottom; not, as in this case, downwards from the rim. No trace of ring baskets has yet come to light in our excavations in Basket- maker caves; a bit of twilled work found in Cave 1, 1915,2 was probably part of a flexible bag-basket like the present one.
TEXTILES
Plain Weaving. As the collection of Basket-maker textiles described in our first report contained no example of straight over- and-under weaving, we believed that the Basket-makers practised but two technics, namely twining and coiled-netting (coil without foundation). Among the material collected in 1916-1917 there are, however, three pieces of plain over-and-under weave. The largest of these is the cloth outer wrapping of the infant from Cist 13, White Dog Cave. Though much torn and showing long use, enough remains so that by arranging tattered ends of selvage in their proper positions one dimension is shown to be 274 inches. The other, based on extending the design to a symmetrical termination, would be 26 inches. It is probable that allowing for error in these measurements the original piece was square. The general appear-
1 See Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 108 and plate 43. The specimens figured by Pepper (1902, p. 23) are probably not Basket-maker, particularly as one of them was found filled with beans; the basket shown on p. 25, however, seems to be identical with the one under discussion. * Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 167.
1
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BASKET-MAKER CAVES
ance of the fabric is the same as that of the twined-woven bags both in color and design, the difference in technic not being ap- parent at first sight. The weave is rather coarse, having nine warp and fifteen weft strands to the inch. Both warp and weft are of a uniform sized two-strand twist of rather coarse vegetal fiber pre- sumably yucca. As far as it is possible to work it out from the scant material at hand the weave is as shown in the diagrammatic draw- ing, figure 11, b. Details as to the manner in which the warp edge is finished appear in figure 11, b, and plate 25, c. The warp ends are cut close and the weft kept from unraveling by a buttonhole stitch. The edge running parallel to the warp is finished by twining two fine strands of human hair through the loops that result from turning back the weft for a new start; this also is illustrated in figure 11, b.
In the photograph, plate 4, a, there is seen at one point a circular hole, cut in the fabric, and finished all around by overcasting with fiber thread. The design (plate 26, b) consists of a series of large rectangles arranged in three rows, the two outside rows red, the center one black. The units average 2} inches long by 1} inches wide. Separately dyed elements were not introduced to produce the design; but apparently, when the weaving reached a point where a change of color was desired, the weft strand was thoroughly rubbed with color for the required length and then woven in. The warp cords show little color, such as appears on them probably re- sulting from contact with the weft. It is possible that the finished piece may have been treated with some mordant to fix the dye.
The second example of this weave is a fragment 12 inches long by 2 inches wide in very bad condition, one end showing darning. It is also from White Dog Cave. There are traces of a broad design in red, the exact character of which cannot be determined. The piece appears to be a part of a blanket very similar to the one just described. There remains a short section of one edge finished with a thread of human hair twined through the weft loops.
The third piece, from Cave 11, Sagiotsosi, was found with the disturbed burial described on page 37. It is very evenly woven with fourteen warp and twenty-one weft strands to the inch. The fragment has a length one way of 12 inches, and is a part of one corner of the original piece, so that two edges remain. Both warp and weft edges are finished in the same manner as the one first de-
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PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 24
a
b
C
d
g
Baskets: All from White Dog Cave with the exception of d, which is from Cave 2, Kinboko Canyon, Marsh Pass. (About 1/16.)
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Escribed: a buttonhole stitch of fine string, and human hair twining thread respectively. The design is in red and black, and so far as it can be traced is shown in plate 26, c. It is painted, not woven, and the color was applied only to one side of the cloth; the red pigment has soaked through the fabric and the red parts of the design appear faintly on the back. The black paint has not soaked through at all. To the corner is tied a dressed leather thong, which leads us to think that it may have been part of a garment.
These fabrics remind one strongly of the Coahuila cave textiles, many of which are large poncho-like blankets woven in the same
b
FIGURE 11 a, Detail of weave, fur cloth blankets; b, Plain woven cloth, detail of weave and selvage.
way as these, and also have one edge finished with the buttonhole stitch. The latter resemblance seems significant, since we have not been able to find in the Museum collection textiles from any other region so finished. The designs, it is true, are different, though some of the elements seen in the Basket-maker twined- woven bags are also found in the Coahuila blankets.
The zigzag lines seen in the second specimen (plate 26, c) are very similar to the zigzags painted on the breasts of certain square- shouldered Basket-maker pictographs from the Monuments.1 This resemblance has suggested to us that these woven fabrics may have been used as shirts.
Twined Weaving. The bags illustrated on plates 26, 28, and 30 form one of the most interesting groups in the collection, not only
1 Kidder-Guernsey, 1919, p. 197, figures 100, 101.
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because of the excellence of their manufacture and the variety and beauty of their decoration, but also because they are so peculiarly characteristic of the Basket-maker culture. We have, fortunately, a large amount of material: complete bags to illustrate size, shape, and design; and great numbers of rags and fragments to make clear the details of technic.
The bags are flexible seamless sacks with full, round bodies and long, gradually constricted necks (plate 26, a, d). They range from 1} inches to 2 feet or more in length. All are made in the same way, of close twined weaving; the majority of specimens have both warp and weft of two-ply apocynum string, though some have yucca warp and apocynum weft. The combination of apocy- num warp and yucca weft is rare.
Our study of the weave was begun by examining the bottoms of the bags in order to make out how the preliminary " set-up " of the warp cords was accomplished. By dissecting several frag- mentary specimens we found that there were two methods, one common, the other rare. The former was as follows: six long strands were laid across each other, three above and three below (figure 12, a); the middle strand of each set of three runs out straight, the others are bent so that their ends radiate from the common center. There are thus produced twelve original warps. The second method consists of twisting three strands about each other and then bending their ends so that they radiate and form six warp cords (figure 12, b).
The above systems are very simple and practical, and avoid the ugly lump and the potential weakness in the fabric which would have been the result of knotting the warps together at the base. The method of inserting the weft also obviates knotting: a single long string is worked over and under the radiating warp cords close about their common center; this is shown slack in figure 12, a, b; in reality it is pulled up very tight and holds the warp firmly to- gether. When a circuit of the spoke-like warps has been made, the two ends of the weft string of course come together; they are then combined into a single strand of twined weaving, which con- tinues spirally around and around to form the body of the bag fabric.
To return to the warp-skeleton. Many large bags have as many as three hundred and fifty warps at their point of greatest diameter.
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 25
2
a, Pottery, Cave 6; b, Twined-woven fabric, White Dog Cave; c, Plain woven fabric, Sagiotsosi Canyon; d, Coiled netted fabric, White Dog Cave; e-h, Necklaces, White Dog Cave.
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It is obvious that these could not all come together at the bottom of the bag; hence the base begins with six or twelve warps only (as described above) and sets of new cords are introduced as the Original ones radiate away from each other. Upon the number of new warps depends the size of the finished bag; and upon the rapidity of their insertion depends the degree of flare imparted to the base. If many new warps are added close to the bottom, the latter will naturally be very flat; if they are put in more gradually the bag will have an egg-shaped base. Figures 13, a, b, illustrate
b
FIGURE 12
Methods of arranging and binding warp cords when beginning the construction of twined-woven bags. The weft cords are shown in solid black.
this; each one represents, diagrammatically, a circle about 1} inches in diameter at the bottom of a bag. In figure 13, a, the original twelve warp cords are multiplied to forty-eight by two series of insertions, the first or inner series consisting of twelve new cords, the second of twenty-four. In figure 13, b, the same total is arrived at, but there are three series of insertions; the first of six, the next of twelve and an outer one of twenty-four. Figure 13, c, shows an area of bottom no greater than in the former specimens, but containing seventy-six warps, set in as follows: original series twelve, first insertion series twelve, second series fourteen, third thirty-eight. The weft in all three cases is woven in with approximately the same degree of tightness; hence the warps of a and b are pulled close to each other and the bags have
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BASKET-MAKER CAVES
narrower bottoms than in c, where the quicker insertion of warps allows the base to grow rapidly broader.
We have not yet mentioned the actual method of inserting new warps. Two ways were employed. In one (plate 27, b) the string to be added was looped and laid between two of the old warps (b, b') thus forming two new ones (a. a'); the first two or three turns of the weft (c, e') attach the new strands to the old warps on either side of them holding all firmly in place; the next turn of weft (d) takes in each new element separately and the weaving continues normally.
In the second method (plate 27, a), the strand to be added was doubled into a loop, making, as before, two new warps; the string
a
b
c
FIGURE 13
Methods of inserting new warp cords to increase diameter of bottom of bags.
at the bend of the loop was twisted apart into its two component plies and one of the old warps (b) was threaded through the re- sultant opening; the loop (a, s') was then slid up the old warp and brought close against the last woven turn of the weft (c), thus producing a pair of new warps (a, a') one on each side of the original one (b); on its next revolution about the bag the weft (d) takes in the two new warps and holds them solidly.
By the two methods just detailed the new warps become integral parts of the fabric without leaving any loose ends and without necessitating any disfiguring knots. The tension on the warps, however, incident to the use of the bags, tends to pull the loops very tight and so away from the last weft turn woven previously to their insertion, thus producing the little open space in the web indicated in the two figures. Where many new warp-pairs were introduced (as in the outer circle of figure 13, c) these little holes
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 26
b
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ER. Red
= Block
d
Textile designs: a d, Twined-woven bags; b, c, Plain woven cloth.
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naturally lie close together and make very characteristic open-work rings about the bottoms of the bags.
The two different ways of adding warps (figure 13, a, b) are about equally common. In most bags either one or the other is adhered to; occasionally the two are mixed (figure 13, c). All bags seem to start with either six or twelve original warps, the ultimate size of the fabric depending on the number of new ones introduced; a medium-large bag (A-3054) had at its point of greatest diameter a total of about three hundred and fifty warps. Almost all speci- mens are more or less constricted toward the mouth; this is accom- plished partly by tightening the twining of the weft and thus bringing the warp closer together, and partly by dropping out warps. A warp to be dropped is merely cut off and its end hidden by the next turn of the weft.
The final point in the study of the warps is the method of secur- ing them at the edge or mouth of the bag to insure a strong and ravel-proof selvage. This was sometimes accomplished by turning the warp ends about a stout edge-string (figure 14, a) and running them back a little way on themselves; they were held in this position by the last few turns of the weft; their loops about the edge cord were then pulled tight and the ends of the cords clipped off close to the fabric. In other cases the warp ends were looped under each other, then gathered into bundles of four or five, tucked with an awl through the fabric just below the edge and finally clipped (figure 14, b). A third method also dispensed with the edge-cord: each warp was bent at the edge, paired with the warp next it, run back along it towards the bottom of the bag, held by the upper weft-turns, pulled snug, and clipped (figure 14, c).1
We now take up the twining of the weft, which is perfectly simple and regular. It begins at the very bottom (figure 12, a, b) and continues in a close spiral to the mouth. Fresh lengths of weft string were not tied to the ends of the old ones (these weavers seem to have had a deep-seated aversion to knots), but were run a little way with them until firmly set. The entire weft, while made, of course, of many pieces, is thus essentially continuous. The method of procedure is unknown; it is probable, however, that the work was downward, the base of the bag having been attached
1 Compare with a similar method of fastening warp ends in Cliff-dweller sandal heels (Kidder- Guernsey, 1919, p. 104 and figure 38).
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to a limb or pole and the warps allowed to hang either free or tie- in loose bunches to prevent tangling.1 The twelve-year old daughter of one of the authors has experimented with this tech- nic and has quickly become expert in making the bags. She holds the two weft-strings loosely across the palm of her handE separated by the index finger and gives the twist necessary to cross them between warps by merely turning the hand over. Each suc- cessive warp is hooked up and drawn between the wefts with the == index finger. No tool is necessary for beating up the weft, as it]
C
FIGURE 14
Various methods of finishing the top of twined-woven bags.
can be made to sit tightly by a slight pull after every few warp- crossings.
The weave of the ancient specimens is very even, and the number of wefts per inch over the whole surface of any given bag is always practically the same, though the warps at the necks of constricted examples are pulled somewhat closer together than they are at the swell of the bodies. The coarsest weave in the collection (A-3005) has five warps and fourteen weft-pairs per square inch; the finest (A-3161) has fourteen warps and twenty-three weft-pairs. The normal texture lies approximately half way between these two extremes with about nine warps and seventeen or eighteen weft- pairs.
The decoration of the bags is no less interesting than their structure. There are two styles, woven and painted, both some- times appearing on the same piece.
The woven ornaments were accomplished by what may be termed the " dyed weft " process. When a band of color was to be introduced a new weft-pair of the desired shade was not added,
1 See a picture of a Virginia Indian woman weaving a bag-like basket, Mason, 1904, figure 148.
PEABODY MUSEUM PAPERS
VOL. VIII, No. 2, PLATE 27
b
c
P
c
d
e
a-e, Details of twined-woven bags; f, Detail of plain woven carrying-strap.
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but the weft then in use was itself stained or rubbed with dye for the requisite length and then woven in. While there is no reason why very short lengths of weft should not have been so colored and small unit figures thus produced, we have found no instance of the practice in the twined bags,1 all the designs being in the form of bands completely encircling the bodies of the sacks. These bands are infinitely variable, but all are made in the same way and are very easily analyzed. To understand them one must keep in mind that in twined weaving a double weft is used, the two elements of which twine both about each other and about the warps. Each of the two elements crosses every other warp, hence all the warps are crossed (plate 27, c, a); and when the weft is pulled tight the warp is entirely hidden, each weft element (in the pair) appearing on the surface of the fabric over every other warp. If the two elements are of the same color the resultant line of weaving will be monochrome; if of different colors, the line will be " beaded," half of one color, half of the other (plate 27, c, d).
The bodies of the bags are woven of undyed apocynum, a warm yellowish-brown. The band designs are commonly in red, black, or a mixture of the two (plate 28) .? The simplest are the single lines in solid black or solid red that encircle the bases of most specimens as shown in this plate. By introducing wefts with one black and one natural element, or one red and one natural, beaded lines are produced and these are combined to make up the great variety of bands shown in the illustrations. They are all narrow (the widest in the collection contains but twenty-four lines) and no two, except the simplest types (such as plate 29, c), are ever exactly alike. A favorite practice was to make a band con- taining both red and black as in b, of this plate, and then weave just above it the same band with the colors reversed. A little study of the detailed drawings in the plate will show better than any amount of description the nature of the patterns and the ways in which, by combining " beaded " and solid lines, the different vertical, horizontal and oblique effects were produced.
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