In looking over the various arts of the Alaskan Indian the most interesting to me are the carving and basket-weaving. For the carving they use gold, silver, wood, bronze, and ivory. Out of gold and silver are made rings, bracelets, and earrings, cups and saucers from the bronze, and tiny canoes and paddles, gaily colored, and both small and large totem poles are carved from the wood. The gold and silver ornaments are made from coins, which are heated and pounded into the required shapes. These are decorated with the pictures of frogs, snakes, or bears, anything the Indian fancy dictates.
Both handsome and unique cups and saucers have recently been made from the bronze, but those are very expensive. The canoes and paddles vary in length from a few inches to two or three feet, and are painted the same as those used in every-day life.
Native Jewelers of Alaska Carving on Metal and Ivory.
The totem poles are family histories. Each tribe is represented by some animal, as a bear, fox, eagle, etc. Thus, if a man from the bear tribe marries into the fox tribe, the bear is at the head of the pole followed by the fox, and as the children marry their tribe emblems are recorded on the pole.
Formerly the Indians made their own herb dyes, but, as they have copied many other ways of the white man, they now use our common dyes. They do not last as long as the herb dyes, but they still succeed in producing as hideous combinations of colors as they ever did.
Their basket-weaving is all that one can really admire and still be truthful. The young, tender shoots of the yellow cedar are used for the finest work. Baskets are made of various sizes and many different shapes. Handles, and covers with tiny knobs, furnish some, making them useful as well as ornamental. Some are so closely woven as to be water tight. As a rule the color combinations on the baskets closely approach the beautiful, and make really pretty ornaments for one's home.
