Turning to the design reproductions (Figures 6, 7, 8, 9), we observe a most consistent similarity in all those of the rosette type, to wit, the conventional centre, the radiating petals, and the enclosing diamond or four-curve, recurring with modifications in practically all of such designs. Some are very handsome, a few rather colourless. The dotting is very distinctive. Next are the line or border patterns, which, although adapted to linear spaces, are characterized, like the rosettes, by intertwined lines, dots, and petals. Frequently different rosettes appear on each of the four sides of the same basket; and the sides are also occasionally quartered diagonally by one of the border or line patterns, and are thus divided into triangular areas, each containing a rosette. Unfortunately none of the painted figures show in the photographs, on account of their having become quite faint through age and wear.[4]
In this whole series of conventional painted patterns a general resemblance to northeastern Algonkin designs, as far north as the Naskapi of Labrador, is very noticeable. It is, moreover, quite likely that similar designs among the Narragansetts were referred to by Roger Williams when he wrote, “They also commonly paint these (skin garments, etc.) with varieties of formes and colours.”[5]
A further extension of the ubiquitous splint basketry of the New England tribes, and the decorative work connected therewith, is furnished by another Connecticut tribe--the Scatticook, of the Housatonic river, near Kent. Their art is especially interesting, because it has also just become extinct among their descendants here. As a tribe the Scatticook (_Pisga´‛tiguk_, ‘At the fork of the river’) were composed of exiled Pequots, Mohegans, and the remnants of western Connecticut tribes who formed a new unit in their new home.[6] Their type of culture was accordingly intermediate in some respects between the eastern Connecticut tribes and those of the Hudson river.
To judge from a vocabulary which I obtained at Scatticook about ten years ago, they had closer linguistic affinities with the Hudson River (Delaware) group.
Until ten years ago the native art of basketry was preserved by the Scatticooks, and some specimens were then collected during several visits. It was found recently, in another visit to the tribe, that the industry had become extinct; so our remarks are now based upon old specimens and implements in the possession of the Indians. The general character of Scatticook work is the same as that of the Mohegans. Instead of the maple, however, the Scatticook used white oak or brown ash. The method of preparing the splints was the same, as was also the case with the types of weaving (Plate VIII). In the round-bottom forms we notice the same flat radiating splints cut narrow at the edge, as figured before in dealing with Mohegan work. The Scatticook baskets are, as a whole, quite finely constructed of very thin splints. One somewhat distinctive feature is found here, namely, the very frequent use of the curlicue or roll as an ornamental feature. The curlicue consists of a splint run over one of the warp splints and twisted between two alternate standards, thus making a sort of twisted imbrication. The Scatticook, considering the embellishment as representing a shell, call it “a shell”; and they term the baskets with this feature “shell-baskets” (Figures 15, 16, 17).