The tule mat that everything is resting on is the tule that was given to my wife and I when we were married, by my mother. This is a real old style of tule mat that was wound around in a coiled fashion I guess.

If you get a little bit of a close up of what it looks like you an see that it is wrapped around each other. You might be able to see the line that goes right through here but that is how it was held together.

These mats were used ceremonially and also for shelter and even for making bags to carry things in. They were used for storage. One of the neat things about this plant is that when it gets wet it swells a little bit. When it swells it shuts out the ability for water to pass through it and it would just feed the water off to the side. It would take a lot of these different mats to make one shelter for one family. It was something that was constantly kept up on to keep the lodge in good order. You’ll notice on the edge here there’s a little bit of what we call qému that was used in making string. That was a plant that we have that we harvest in the fall time and you just take the bark and you twist it together and it makes a real good string, a real good rope.