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Show 234 BASIS OF AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 potters' wheel had never been invented by any people of the Western Hemisphere. The aesthetic value of Indian pottery is either in the form or the surface decoration. Vjn the older examples from the mounds there appears to have been a tendency to model the vessels in imitation of natural forms- animals, men, and the like. ^^ In the southwest the artistic impulse finds its chief expression in the coloring and surface decoration, which latter is painted on and fixed by firing. ^. X) f textile industries basketry and matting are not only the most primitive, they are also the most wide- spread. In the study of savage technique basketry has afforded the best basis for comparisons, and the distribution of types of manufacture and designs in this particular art in North America is so striking that much has been learned regarding the cultural relations of the Indian tribes from whom collections of basketry have been made. 1 The uses of basketry cannot be enumerated. It appears in every phase of the Indian's life; and being, in one form or another, distributed over practically the whole of the continent, it may be regarded as one of the most significant objects of Indian industry. v Woven and coiled basketry are the two types of technique, the former built on a warp foundation and the latter on a basis of rods or splints. \ Woven basketry is seen in its simplest form among the 1 For an exhaustive and excellent account of Indian basketry, see Mason, Aboriginal American Basketry. i |