said to
have been transferred from the tubes, and a pair of which one of the
priests, who came east with me two years ago, brought from New Mexico
to Boston in his hands--so precious were they considered as
relics--for the purpose of replenishing them with water from the
Atlantic. These vessels are encased rudely but strongly in a meshing
of splints (see Fig. 500), and while I do not positively claim that
they have been piously preserved since the time of the universal use
of gourds as water-vessels by the ancestry of this people, they are
nevertheless of considerable antiquity. Their origin is attributed to
the priest-gods, and they show that it must have once been a common
practice to encase gourds, as above described, in osiery.

[Illustration: FIG. 500.--Gourd vessel enclosed in wicker.]

POTTERY ANTICIPATED BY BASKETRY.

This crude beginning of the wicker-art in connection with
water-vessels points toward the development of the wonderful
water-tight basketry of the southwest, explaining, too, the
resemblance of many of its typical forms to the shapes of
gourd-vessels. Were we uncertain of this, we might again turn to
language, which designates the impervious wicker water-receptacle of
whatever outline as _tom ma_, an evident derivation from the
restricted use of the word _tom me_ in connection with gourd or cane
vessels, since a basket of any other kind is called _tsi i le_.

It is readily conceivable that water-tight osiery, once known, however
difficult of manufacture, would displace the general use of
gourd-vessels. While the growth of the gourd was restricted to limited
areas, the materials for basketry were everywhere at hand. Not only
so, but basket-vessels were far stronger and more durable, hence more
readily transported full of water, to any distance. By virtue of their
rough surfaces, any leakage in such vessels was instantly stopped by a
daubing of pitch or mineral asphaltum, coated externally with sand or
coarse clay to harden it and overcome its adhesiveness.

[Illustration: FIG. 501.--Havasupai clay-lined roasting-tray.]

We may conclude, then, that so long as the Pueblo ancestry were
semi-nomadic, basketry supplied the place of pottery, as it still does
for the less advanced tribes of the Southwest, except in cookery.
Possibly for a time basketry of this kind served in place of pottery
even for cookery, as with one of the above-mentioned tribes, the _Ha
va su pai_ or Coconinos, of Cataract