Imbrication: The Signature Basket Decoration

The 1928 Bureau of American Ethnology monograph states: "Imbrication, which is the characteristic feature of modern baskets, is quite unique in the types of basketry technique of the world." As the coil was sewn, a ribbon of coloured bark or grass was folded back on itself under each stitch, so that "the effect of a line of imbricated stitches is that of a row of tiny overlapping shingles, only that the overlapping edges lie vertically, not horizontally."

"Beading and imbrication were both employed as a means of decorating the basket surface by all the British Columbia tribes which made coiled baskets." The decorative materials were "cedar bark dyed red with alder, yellow with Oregon grape root, and black by burying in mud," together with grass "in its natural white color or dyed in the same way as cedar bark."

The study, built on James Teit's interviews with basket makers, records the makers' own classification of designs. Some named patterns were regarded as "real designs and designated by the names of the creatures or objects pictured," while new, untried or unconventional figures were called tlEe'ka. Teit described one story basket: "One side pictures a buck deer, another a bow and arrow, a third a man, and the fourth a moon... As arranged in this order, the Indians give the patterns the following explanation: 'It was moonlight. A man was hunting in the moonlight and saw a buck deer running away and shot it with a bow and arrow in the back.'" He added that "such instances are exceedingly rare."

The authors were careful not to over-read symbolism: "to most of the simple geometric figures so many different and utterly unrelated interpretations are given that it is quite evident that the process of reading in meanings has been carried very far." Flower and leaf figures, panther, salmon, otter, beetle, butterfly and eagle figures are all documented among the sketch plates.

For the Secwepemc specifically the record is thin: the monograph itself admits that "complete data from the Shuswap can not be obtained at this period," and that "information regarding the shapes of the baskets, the material employed in imbrication, the designs and design names, is very incomplete for this area." Most documented design names come from the neighbouring Nlaka'pamux (Thompson), the group Boas called "one of the groups most prolific in the making of decorated basketry."