"
"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.
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