They had a very ingenious sort of spear which they used on this and on other occasions. it had several prongs, and each prong was armed with a sharp point made of bone or of horn, and dexterously fastened to the wood in such a manner that it could be thrust into the fish, and yet so slightly fastened that when the fish struggled to escape, the point would come off and remain sticking in his flesh. There was a cord attached to the point, which passed up into the hand of the fisherman. Thus, when the fish was pierced and attempted to swim away, the fisherman could control his motions by the line, just as an angler does at the present day, and so finally, when he became exhausted, bring him to the land. This was the nearest approach to our contrivance of a fish-hook which they were able to accomplish. Some of these spear-heads were very nicely made, and were barbed by means of a second point delicately lashed to the principal one at the proper angle. Sometimes these points were made of thorns.
Various Manufactures
The Indians were accustomed to fabricate various other articles of simple construction and use, such as a sort of awl, or rather stiletto, from a thorn, by which, in sewing, they made holes for the thread, in the skin, or the birch bark, or whatever the material might be that they were at work upon. Besides leggins and moccasins, they made a number of other useful articles by means of these needles, such as pouches to told tobacco, and small bags called paint-bags, to contain ochres and other pigments which they used to paint their faces with, and also quivers to contain their arrows. Some of these things were made plain, but others were ornamented with embroidery, fringes of dyed hair, feathers, porcupine quills, and other such things, in a most elaborate manner.
In weaving mats they used a long, slender piece of bone for working in the filling - the rushes forming the warp. This bone served the purpose of a shuttle, and the mats woven by it were very compact and strong. The shuttle had a cleft formed in each end, so that the thread that was used for the filling could be wound upon it.
They manufactured also a great variety of pipes, some of them considerably artistic in form and finish. The material of these pipes was usually some sort of stone soft enough to be worked by such tools as they could command, but often they were made of clay and baked in the fire. When made of stone the bowls were ground out by means of a hard-pointed stick, of the shape of the intended cavity, worked with sand and water.
Painting the Face
The custom of painting the face and other parts of the body seems to have originated in that of oiling the skin, which, it is said, produced a salutary effect in the summer by checking the perspiration in some degree, and defending the person from the attacks of insects. This latter end was the better attained when some foreign substance was mixed with the oil, and in choosing the substance to be applied it was natural that savages should soon learn to fancy something that was ornamental as well as useful. In certain tropical countries, where the natives are in a state of great barbarism, a custom prevails of anointing the body with a wash of thin mud or clay, which, when it is dried and hardened, forms a coat that the proboscis of gnats and midges cannot penetrate. The Indians, with their colored ochres ground in oils which they had obtained from the beavers and the bears, considered themselves doubtless on a far higher level of refinement and civilization than such poor savages as these, daubed with a mere paste of clay.
The Tikkinagon
Although the women were very little in the habit of decorating themselves, but surrendered all fringes and feathers and other such finery to their husbands and sons, they sometimes expended a great deal of time and labor in making and decorating the little cradle, if cradle it may be called, which was prepared for the baby. In the language of some of the tribes it was called a Tikkinagon.
This contrivance, as has already been said, was formed of a board, or of some flat fabric of their own make equivalent to a board. Near the foot of it was a projection like a shelf to support the baby's feet. This projection was often curved so as to come up a little way on each side of the legs, in order to support them laterally. There was a socket made for the head, which was padded with soft moss, and there was a strap which came over the forehead when the baby was put into its place, so as to stay the head and keep it from rolling about. There were other bands which passed across from side to side over the breast and thighs of the baby. The whole was often very elaborately made, and all the bands and borders were ornamented with carvings and embroidery in a very curious manner.
The position of the poor baby, when put into a Tikkinagon, was, of course, fixed and immovable, for his head and limbs were fastened in every part, so that he could not move them at all. In this condition he looked more like an Egyptian mummy that had been three thousand years embalmed, then like a living child just coming forward into being. He bore the confinement, however, with a stoicism characteristic of his race. Whether in his rigid and unyielding couch he was strapped to his mother's back upon a journey, or laid down upon the bottom of a goat, or hung up in a tree, he was silent, patient, motionless, and, to all appearance, totally unconcerned; thus showing that the very low degree of sensibility, both to excitement and to pain, and the emotionless and passive taciturnity which so strongly mark the race, were qualities native and hereditary, not acquired.
The Tikkinagon, however, sometimes contained a slight recognition of the baby's claim to be provided with something to occupy and amuse him, as a strip of elastic wood was not unfrequently attached to the board, with certain little shells and pebbles fastened to the end of it, in such a manner that, when the board was swinging from a tree, the little nursling would have those toys jingling before him.
Fire
The Indians manifested much ingenuity in their mode of obtaining fire. It was very seldom that it was necessary to do this by artificial means, for they were very careful not to allow the fires in their wigwams to go out; and if at any time one went out the others were at hand from which to renew it. Preserving their fires was thus an object of special attention. At certain places where councils were held provision was made, as in the case of the vestal temple in Rome, for keeping up a perpetual fire.
Still it would often happen that hunting parties far away from home, and sometimes the inhabitants of a solitary wigwam, would be without fire, and without any means at hand of obtaining it except by some artificial process. It is well known that all friction produces heat, and that the friction of two dry pieces of wood, if sufficiently violent and long continued, will inflame them, but it is very difficult, without some appropriate machine, to maintain a powerful friction long enough to produce the effect. Very few civilized men can get fire from dry wood by such a process.
The way in which the Indians managed it was this: They would first make a small cavity in a piece of very dry wood of a certain kind - it was only wood of a certain kind that would answer the purpose. They made the cavity by boring into the wood with the point of a sharp stone. Then they would select a long, round stick - which must be also perfectly dry - and from the end of it to a point rudely fitting the cavity which they had bored. To perform the operation, after the arrangements were thus made, required three men. Setting the stick upright in the hole, one of the men would take hold at the top, and by rolling it to and fro between his two hands would cause the point to turn rapidly this way and that in the cavity. He would bear down also with his hands as he rolled the stick between them, in order to keep the point of the stick in the hole and also to increase the friction. But, in consequence of this bearing down, his hands would gradually descend as he rolled. When he had nearly reached the bottom the second man stood ready to begin at the top by taking the stick between hishands in the same manner. By this means the rotation of the point of the stick in the hole was kept up without any intermission until at length smoke, and soon afterward sparks of fire, would appear.