[Illustration: FIG. 502.--Zuñi earthenware roasting tray.]
Among the Havasupaí, still surviving as a sort of bucket, is the basket-pot or boiling-basket, for use with hot stones, which form I have also found in some of the cave deposits throughout the ancient Zuñi country. These vessels (see Fig. 503) were bottle-shaped and provided near the rims of their rather narrow mouths with a sort of cord or strap-handle, attached to two loops or eyes (Fig. 503 _a_) woven into the basket, to facilitate handling when the vessel was filled with hot water. In the manufacture of one of these vessels, which are good examples of the helix or spirally-coiled type of basket, the beginning was made at the center of the bottom. A small wisp of fine, flexible grass stems or osiers softened in water was first spirally wrapped a little at one end with a flat, limber splint of tough wood, usually willow (see Fig. 504). This wrapped portion was then wound upon itself; the outer coil thus formed (see Fig. 505) being firmly fastened as it progressed to the one already made by passing the splint wrapping of the wisp each time it was wound around the latter through some strands of the contiguous inner coil, with the aid of a bodkin. (See Fig. 506.) The bottom was rounded upward and the sides were made by coiling the wisp higher and higher, first outward, to produce the bulge of the vessel, then inward, to form the tapering upper part and neck, into which, the two little twigs or splint loop-eyes were firmly woven. (See again Fig. 503 _a_.)
[Illustration: FIG. 503.--Havasupaí boiling-basket.]
[Illustration: FIG. 504. FIG. 505. FIG. 506. Sketches illustrating manufacture of spirally-coiled basketry.]
[Illustration: FIG. 507.--Typical basket decoration.]
[Illustration: FIG. 508.--Typical basket decoration.]
[Illustration: FIG. 509.--Typical basket decoration.]
These and especially kindred forms of basket-vessels were often quite elaborately ornamented, either by the insertion at proper points of dyed wrapping-splints, singly, in pairs, or in sets, or by the alternate painting of pairs, sets, or series of stitches. Thus were produced angular devices, like serrated bands, diagonal or zigzag lines, chevrons, even terraces and frets. (See Figs. 507, 508, 509.) There can be no doubt that these styles and ways of decoration were developed, along with the weaving of baskets, simply by elaborating on suggestions of the lines and figures unavoidably produced in wicker-work of any kind when strands of different colors happened to be employed together. Even slight discolorations in occasional splints would result in such suggestions, for the stitches would here show, there disappear. The probability of this view of the accidental origin of basket-ornamentation may be enhanced by a consideration of the etymology of a few Zuñi decorative terms, more of which might be given did space admit. A terraced lozenge (see Figs. 510, 511), instead of being named after the abstract word _a wi thlui ap í pä tchi na_, which signifies a double terrace or two terraces joined together at the base, is designated _shu k‘u tu li a tsi´ nan_, from _shu e_, splints or fibers; _k‘u tsu_, a double fold, space, or stitch (see Figs. 512, 513); _li a_, an interpolation referring to form; and _tsi´ nan_, mark; in other words, the "double splint-stitch-form mark." Likewise, a pattern, composed principally of a series of diagonal or oblique parallel lines _en masse_ (see Fig. 514), is called _shu´ k‘ish pa tsí nan_, from _shú e_, splints; _k‘i´sh pai e_, tapering (_k‘ish pon ne_, neck or smaller part of anything); and _tsí nan_, mark; that is, "tapering" or "neck-splint mark." Curiously enough, in a bottle-shaped basket as it approaches completion the splints of the tapering part or neck all lean spirally side by side of one another (see Fig. 515), and a term descriptive of this has come to be used as that applied to lines resembling it, instead of a derivative from _ä´s sël lai e_, signifying an oblique or leaning line. Where splints variously arranged, or stitches, have given names to decorations--applied even to painted and embroidered designs--it is not difficult for us to see that these same combinations, at first unintentional, must have suggested the forms to which they gave names as decorations.