. Bulletin. Ethnology. 17] ALGONQUIN" BIRCHBARK—SPECK 245 the National Museum of Canada from the River Desert Band, and from the Golden Lake Band in the Museum of the American Indian, and others recently (1937) added to the series—half a dozen in all— are found to have a reinforcement of bu-chbark sewed into the rim and extending a short way below it. This takes the form of a cut-out decoration as well as a reinforcement, serving the double objective of decoration and of strengthening. Among the Indians this feature of construction is called the "canoe wrapping,"
. Bulletin. Ethnology. 17] ALGONQUIN" BIRCHBARK—SPECK 245 the National Museum of Canada from the River Desert Band, and from the Golden Lake Band in the Museum of the American Indian, and others recently (1937) added to the series—half a dozen in all— are found to have a reinforcement of bu-chbark sewed into the rim and extending a short way below it. This takes the form of a cut-out decoration as well as a reinforcement, serving the double objective of decoration and of strengthening. Among the Indians this feature of construction is called the "canoe wrapping," since it is so often re- sorted to in sewing the gunwales of canoes where the bark of the sides join them, as a measure of strengthening the attachment. It also functions similarly in leather work as shown in the edging of moccasins. iimmimimiimmm. FiGUBE 6.—Decorations below rims of birchbark containers. a, 6, River Desert Band (NMC, HI, L, 19, 20); c, d, Timagami Band (NMC, III, Q, 248, 256); e, from, birchbark dish (NMD); /, dish, River Desert Band (MAI, 10/1597) and dish 4^-inches in diameter (NMD). Just why this peculiarity of bark-basket construction should occur with such frequency among the Algonquin and not among the Mon- tagnais is, however, not so simple to explain. Whether or not it has a distribution to the west or northwest in the direction of the Cree and Saulteaux remains to be found out. At present it would seem that it has, judging from the few specimens of Cree birchbark basketry that are available from the Saskatchewan area. We may hardly speculate further in this direction at the present time. The occurrence of the bark rim reinforcement in baskets of birch- bark of the Athabaskan and Sahaptian Tribes is stressed by Boas (in Teit, 1909, pp. 477-478), raising a question as to the history of this particular feature of construction that calls for more information on bark wares of the intervening territories. 218558—41 17. Please note that these imag
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