were derived from these vessels as well as from baskets. Some tribes made pottery and then, as circumstances changed, they abandoned its use and finally forgot how to make it. Dorsey states that “pottery has not been made by the Omaha for more than fifty years. The art of making it has been forgotten by the tribe.”[80] [Illustration: MOKI FOOD BASKET.] [Illustration: KLAMATH BASKET.] Various conditions might cause a tribe to cease making pottery, if it were not a sedentary tribe. One constantly on the move would either never learn to make pottery, or if, during some sedentary period, it had acquired this art it would soon drop it, because in primitive travel basketry and gourds are lighter and more serviceable than the crude pottery they could produce. Thus if a tribe living a comparatively quiet life and developing the potter’s art came into possession of the horse, the pottery might be abandoned because it could not readily be transported. This would apply only to tribes making rude pottery, for where a people had attained great proficiency in this direction they would not give it up, except, as in the case of Taos, they could purchase nearby a sufficient supply. Proficiency would only accompany a sedentary life, so that great skill in pottery would be a rather sure index of the character and progress of a people in other directions. While a people might achieve progress without doing much in pottery, if they did excel in pottery it would be an indication of excellence in other lines. Pottery is well-nigh imperishable, and therefore it is often the chief record that a departed people has left behind. Where almost every other distinguishing vestige has completely disappeared, we may frequently still discover scattered on the surface fragments of pottery, or buried in the soil complete specimens, which by their form, texture, or decorative treatment tell what manner of people these were who lived their lives and passed away; tell the limits of their distribution, and also to what other tribes or people they were related. Pottery therefore, next to actual records and inscriptions, is probably the most valuable as well as often the only kind of remains, that a race has left. [Illustration: MOKI FOOD TRAY.] [Illustration: MOKI FLOOR MAT.] [Illustration: ESKIMO WHALEBONE DISH] [Illustration: CLALLAM BASKET, WASHINGTON.] [Illustration: AMERIND WICKER-WORK APACHE BASKET. PAI UTE WATER-JUG. MOKI FOOD TRAY. KLAMATH BASKET. For an excellent review of this subject, see “Basket-work of the North American Aborigines,” by Otis T. Mason, _Report of the U. S. National Museum, Part II of the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1884_. ]