The former type is furnished with a bottom of willow branches. The sides are built up by twisting rolls of arrow bush with the butts thrust into the coil beneath to bind the whole together.[1] This type is used for storing mesquite beans on the tops of the houses or sheds (fig. 4). They are also built on the ground in groups, which are inclosed by a low fence to protect them from stock. They are made before the harvest begins, and as the coils are large and there is no close work required a large bin may be built up in half a day.
The straw baskets have their coils fastened with strips of willow bark about 5 mm. in width. The stitches pass through the upper margin of the last coil and are about 20 mm. apart. The coils are from 1 to 2 cm. in diameter. The baskets are from one-half to 1½ meters in height. They are covered by a circular disk of the same material or, more frequently, by a section of the bottom of an old worn-out basket.
In making these baskets two rolls are carried around at once, but as they are made with some care it takes much longer than to make a bin of arrow bushes. The baskets are made after the harvest, when the straw is available.
- ↑ The remains of a basket of this type were found by the writer in June, 1901, when examining the two large cliff-houses about 4 miles south of the Salt river, opposite the mouth of the Tonto. Bandeller gives the ground plan of these structures in Papers of Archeol. Inst., Am. ser., IV, pt. II, 426. This would suggest relationship with the Pueblo cliff-dwellers (assuming that the place had not been occupied recently by Apaches or other invaders), were it not for the fact that this type of bins, as well as the arbors on which they are built, prevails among the southern California tribes.
