What have you seen that is made of splints of wood?
Find branches that can be made into splints.
See if you can do anything to the wood to make it split
more easily.
How many splints do you think the women split the stems
into at first? How could they make flat splints?
How could they make splints that were the same width?
_How the Women Made Splints for Baskets_
After the spruce branches had soaked a few days, the women brought them
to the cave.
While the children played with sticks and stones, their mothers made
some splints.
[Illustration: _Making splints for baskets_]
They peeled off the bark with their teeth and nails, and split one end
of the stem.
Then they held one piece with their teeth and pulled the other two
pieces with their hands.
The splints that they made in this way were neither round nor flat.
They had three sharp corners.
Two of these corners were hard and tough, but one was soft and pithy.
So they bit the pithy corner and pulled off a long strand of pith.
This left a thick splint that was nearly flat.
The women found that it was hard work to split the larger stems.
They were about to give it up when Firekeeper found a large stem whose
layers of wood peeled easily.
So they all tried to find such stems.
It was not long before they found that the stems that peeled the most
easily were the ones that the children had pounded.
So they all picked up hammer stones and pounded the large stems.
At first each hammered to suit herself, but soon they learned to strike
together.
It was easier for them all when they worked in the same time.
People who have made splints for baskets since then have worked in the
same time.
Sometimes they keep time by calls and sometimes they use rhymes.
[Illustration: “_At first each hammered to suit herself_”]
Perhaps you have heard a bark-beater’s rhyme, or have a rhyme yourself.
This rhyme is used by children nowadays when they try to beat in the
same time:
“Sip, sap, say; sip, sap, say;
Lig in a nettle bed, while Mayday.”