This was plaiting, and it is the first step to basketry and weaving. Many of the simpler arts are native in the brain of man, and the expression of them at the proper time is as easy and natural as it is for a birdling to fly, a kitten to catch a mouse, or a baby to walk for the first time. It is, like sight, or thought, or articulate speech, a direct and unconscious result of the innate composition of mankind. It is impossible to tell why a spider builds a web of even proportions instead of one that is irregular, or when it acquired the skill to perform its feat of engineering, or why it builds a web at all, and does not, like a cat and some species of spiders, rely on springing upon its prey. The spider does this the world round because it is a spider, and because its prey also has, the world round, its own habits. So with man. Everywhere he learned to plait mats, make wicker-work and pottery, and a thousand other things simply because he was everywhere _the same man_. If you examine articles of primitive manufacture from various parts of the globe, you will find them all practically alike, because the men who made them were practically alike and their wants and surroundings were practically alike. They plaited together strips of bark or twisted grasses, or rushes, because they had to have them, and they went on finding out the properties of the materials that compose the world just as they are doing to-day, till they made cloth and made it on a machine. Primitive fabrics were everywhere about the same, and when the loom was invented it was and is, where still used in its primitive form, very much the same. That in use to-day by the Navajos is much like that used by the Orientals. The Navajos are probably not the inventors of it, but borrowed the idea from the Pueblos, or at least derived it through a mixture of Pueblo blood. Their cousins, the Apaches, do not weave, and they are probably better representatives of the original Athapascan stock than the Navajos. The Mexican loom was similar to that of the Navajos, and it is probable that some of the tribes of the Mississippi valley were acquainted with one built on a like pattern. The product of these primitive looms was also much alike in its character; some of the Oriental rugs that we see now strongly resemble the blankets of the Mexicans or Navajos. [Illustration: MENOMINEE BEADED GARTERS] This is because weaving is a simple art; and until the invention of the Jacquard principle complex patterns were produced only by great labour, as all the different colours had to be adjusted by hand, which is still the case in many fine products like the Turkish rugs or the shawls of Cashmere.