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Performing Archive

Hupa

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The basketry of the Karok does not differ from that of the Hupa and the Yurok. The process is always twining, and the usual materials are hazel rod for the warp, roots of the digger or the yellow pine for the weft, and Xerophyllum grass for white overlay, bark of the maidenhair fern for black, and fibres from the stem of Woodwardia fern, dyed in alder-bark juice in the mouth of the workwoman, for red. Represented in the plate are the receptacle for the storage of seeds and nuts, the burden-basket, the winnowing tray, various sizes of mush-baskets and food containers, and the cradle-basket.
The Jumping dance was an annual ceremony for averting pestilence. The head-dress worn by the dancers was a wide band of deerskin with rows of red woodpecker crests and a narrow edging of white deer-hair sewn on it. A deerskin robe was worn as a kilt, and each performer displayed all the shells and beads he possessed or could borrow. In the right hand was carried a straw-stuffed cylinder with a slit-like opening from end to end, an object the significance of which is unknown to the modern Hupa.
Each summer a substantial structure of this kind is thrown across the river, the southern and the northern divisions of the tribe alternating. The weir remains in place until the spring freshets carry it away. A fisherman stands on each of several platforms erected below an equal number of openings in the weir, and lowers and draws his dip-net at random. As the construction of a weir is a communal undertaking, the catch is divided each evening according to the requirements of the various families.