3. TWINED SPRUCE ROOT HAT Haida-style weaving; collected from the Tlingit Greenish-blue paint was often applied to hats. Underneath the green paint are traces of a design that used black, yellow, and red. Whether it was painted over for aesthetic or water-proofing purposes in unknown.

Northern basket makers excelled at the technique of twining, usually with fine split roots of the Sitka spruce. Haida twined spruce root baskets seldom have elaborate patterns, but their simple straightforward elegance of proportion, texture, and color make them favorites of basket fanciers. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

The paint is red and black.

Many round plates such as this one were made in the mid-nineteenth century, very often with this kind of geometric and floral decoration. Some of the inspiration for these plates probably came from English tableware of the time, and certain of the motifs may derive from scrimshaw designs developed by American whalers, especially the wheel-like rosette, which has been likened to the jagging wheels made by the scrimshanders. The plates, like almost all argillite carvings, were purely decorative and were not intended for use. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)