“The large bundle of chippa that is soaking in a basket, and the big coil of yellow kah-hoom and the little one of black tsuwish which are hanging up, and bring me my needle and bone awl.” “Do you want the coil of millay?” “No, I shall need no red to-day.” Squatted on the ground, where she could feel the warmth of the fire on her back, but where the heat could not dry her basket materials, Macana began her work. Taking a dripping chippa, or willow bough, from the basket where it had been soaking, she dried it on leaves and wound it tightly in a close coil the size of her thumbnail, then spatted it together until it seemed no longer a cord, but a solid piece of wood. Thus she made the base of her basket; then, threading her needle, which was but a horny cactus stem set in a head of hardened pitch, she stitched in and out over the upper and under the lower layer, drawing her thread firmly each time. The thread was the creamy, satin-like kah-hoom. Round and round she coiled the chippa, the butt of one piece overlapping the tip of another, while with her needle she covered all with the smoothly drawn kah-hoom. After a time she laid the kah-hoom aside for a stitch or two of the black root of the tule, called tsuwish. The children had watched the starting of the basket, then had begun a game of match, with white and black pebbles. After a time Gesnip, looking up from her play, exclaimed, as she saw the black diamond pattern the weaver was making:-- “Mother, why are you weaving a rattlesnake basket?” “I am making it to please Chinigchinich that he may smile upon me and guard you, children, and Cuchuma from the bite of the rattlesnake. There are so many of them here this year, and I fear for you.” “Thank you, mother,” said Gesnip. “If Titas’s mother had made a black diamond basket, maybe the snake would not have bitten her.” “I think Chinigchinich does smile upon you,” said Payuchi, “for when we were so hungry in the month of roots [October] you wove him the hunting basket with the pattern of deer’s antlers, trimmed with quail feathers, and see how much food we have had: first the rabbits, then the grasshoppers, and now the fish and elk.” “While you work tell us how the first baby basket was made,” begged Cleeta. The mother nodded; and as she wound and pressed closely the moist chippa, and the cactus needle flew in and out with the creamy kah-hoom or the black tsuwish, she told the story. “When the mother of all made the basket for the first man child, she used a rainbow for the wood of the back of the basket, with stars woven in each side, and straight lightning down the middle in front. Sunbeams shining on a far-away rain storm formed the fringe in front, where we use strips of buckskin, and the carry straps were brightest sunbeams.” “Mother, you left out that the baby was wrapped in a soft purple cloud from the mountains,” said Cleeta.