This crude beginning of the wicker-art in connection with
water-vessels points toward the development of the wonderful
water-tight basketry of the southwest, explaining, too, the
resemblance of many of its typical forms to the shapes of
gourd-vessels. Were we uncertain of this, we might again turn to
language, which designates the impervious wicker water-receptacle of
whatever outline as _tóm ma_, an evident derivation from the
restricted use of the word _tóm me_ in connection with gourd or cane
vessels, since a basket of any other kind is called _tsí ì le_.
It is readily conceivable that water-tight osiery, once known, however
difficult of manufacture, would displace the general use of
gourd-vessels. While the growth of the gourd was restricted to limited
areas, the materials for basketry were everywhere at hand. Not only
so, but basket-vessels were far stronger and more durable, hence more
readily transported full of water, to any distance. By virtue of their
rough surfaces, any leakage in such vessels was instantly stopped by a
daubing of pitch or mineral asphaltum, coated externally with sand or
coarse clay to harden it and overcome its adhesiveness.
[Illustration: FIG. 501.--Havasupai clay-lined roasting-tray.]
We may conclude, then, that so long as the Pueblo ancestry were
semi-nomadic, basketry supplied the place of pottery, as it still does
for the less advanced tribes of the Southwest, except in cookery.
Possibly for a time basketry of this kind served in place of pottery
even for cookery, as with one of the above-mentioned tribes, the _Ha
va su paí_ or Coçoninos, of Cataract Cañon, Arizona. These people,
until recently, were cut off from the rest of the world by their
almost impenetrable cañon, nearly half a mile in depth at the point
where they inhabit it. For example, when I visited them in 1881, they
still hafted sharpened bits of iron, like celts, in wood. They had not
yet forgotten how to boil food in water-tight basketry, by means of
hot stones, and continued to roast seeds, crickets, and bits of meat
in wicker-trays, coated inside with gritty clay. (See Fig. 501.) The
method of preparing and using these roasting-trays has an important
bearing on several questions to which reference will be made further
on. A round basket-tray, either loosely or closely woven, is evenly
coated inside with clay, into which has been kneaded a very large
proportion of sand, to prevent contraction and consequent cracking
from drying. This lining of clay is pressed, while still soft, into
the basket as closely as possible with the hands and then allowed to
dry. The tray is thus made ready for use. The seeds or other
substances to be parched are placed inside of it, together with a
quantity of glowing wood-coals. The operator, quickly squatting,
grasps the tray at opposite edges, and, by a rapid spiral motion up
and down, succeeds in keeping the coals and seeds constantly shifting
places and turning over as they dance after one another around and
around the tray, meanwhile blowing or puffing, the embers with every
breath to keep them free from ashes and glowing at their hottest.
That this clay lining should grow hard from continual heating, and in
some instances separate from its matrix of osiers, is apparent. The
clay form thus detached would itself be a perfect roasting-vessel.