Fig. 115.—Wooden bucket, Nenenot.
Fig. 116.—Birchbark basket, Nenenot.
Fig. 117.—Birchbark
basket, Nenenot.
They also use berry-dishes or baskets like Fig. 116 made from the bark of the spruce peeled in the spring of the year. At this time the bark is quite flexible and may be bent into the desired shape. The corners are sewed with coarse roots from the same tree and the rim is strengthened by a strip of root sewed over and around it by means of a finer strand. These baskets serve a good purpose when the women are picking berries, of which they are inordinately fond; and during that season it is a rarity to see a woman or man without a mouth stained the peculiar blue color which these berries impart.
Baskets of this shape frequently have a top of buckskin sewed to them, closed with a drawstring, as shown in Fig. 117 (No. 3485). Such things serve to hold trinkets and other small articles.