17. Spruce Root Cup & Saucer Tlingit Drinking cups made of twined spruce root were used by Tlingit people in the 1800s (see "Cooking with Basketry"), but cups and saucers like these were made solely for sale to tourists visiting Alaska.

The spruce root is natural and black. The grass is red and yellow.

The paint is black.

The cedar bark is natural. The cedar bark is dye and black. The raffia is natural, pink, and green. The bear grass is natural. The bear grass is dye, pink, green, and purple.

The dye is black.

Haida trading canoes returning from the Nass brought with them as part of their cargo the horns of mountain sheep, from which they made spoons and bowls. The species native to the northern coastal mountains is the Dall sheep, with amber horns somewhat less massive than those of the bighorn sheep. Mountain rams' horns form large, tapered spirals of very tough resilient material which can be carved with woodworking tools and has the quality of becoming soft and flexible when soaked and heated. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)