The great weapon for hunting was the bow and arrow. Indian bows ranged
from frail, weak things, hardly suitable for a child, to the “strong bow”
of the Sioux and Crows, which would send an arrow completely through a
buffalo; the most powerful Colt’s revolver—so Clark says—will not send a
ball through the same animal. The Crows sometimes made beautiful bows of
elk horn; such cost much labor and were highly valued. Three months’ time
was spent in making a single one. Arrows required much care in their
making. In some tribes each man made all his arrows of precisely one
length, different from all others. This was an aid in recognizing them.
Many carried with them a measure, the exact length of their arrows so as
to settle disputes. This was necessary to determine who had killed a given
animal: the carcass belonged to the man whose arrow was found in it.
Among some eastern tribes, and particularly in the south, where fine canes
grow near streams, the blow-gun is used. This consists of a piece of cane
perhaps eight or ten feet long, which is carefully pierced from end to end
and then smoothed inside. Arrows are made from slender shafts of rather
heavy and hard wood. They are perhaps a foot and a half long and hardly
more than a quarter or an eighth of an inch thick. They are cut square at
one end and pointed at the other; around the shaft, toward the blunt end,
a wrapping of thistle-down is firmly secured with thread. This surrounds
perhaps three or four inches of the arrow’s length, and has a diameter
such as to neatly fit the bore of the blow-gun. The arrow is inserted in
the tube, and a sudden puff of breath sends it speeding on its way. An
animal the size of a rabbit or woodchuck may be killed with this weapon at
an astonishing distance.
Among inland tribes, fishing was usually a matter of secondary importance.
Fish pieced out the food supply rather than formed its bulk. But along
some seacoasts fish is a very important food. The tribes of the Northwest
Coast live almost entirely upon fish. The salmon is particularly important
among them. These tribes have devised many kinds of lines, hooks, nets,
fish-baskets, traps, and wiers. Everywhere the commonest mode of securing
fish is and was by spearing.
[Illustration.]
Birch-Bark Canoe.
Once I went out at night with some Indian boys of Gay Head, Martha’s
Vineyard, “neeskotting.” These boys have a good deal of Indian blood, but
they dress, talk, and act in most ways just like white boys. I think
_neeskotting_, however, is truly Indian. “We rode down to the shore in an
ox-cart, carrying lanterns with us. Each boy had a pole, at the end of
which was firmly tied a cod-hook. The tide was falling, and the wind was
blowing in toward shore. Walking along the beach, with lantern held in one
hand so as to see the shallow water’s bottom, and with the pole in the
other hand ready for use, the boys watched for fish. Hake, a foot or more
long, frost fish, lighter colored and more slender, and eels, are the
usual prey. The hake and eels rarely come into water less than six inches
deep. Frost fish, on the contrary, come close into shore, and on cold
nights crowd out on the very beach. When a fish has been seen, a sudden
stroke of the pole and a quick inpull are given to impale the prey, and
drag it in to shore. It was an exciting scene. Hither and thither the boys
darted, with strokes and landings, with cries of joy at success or despair
at failure. Finally, with perhaps fifty hake, twenty frost fish, and one
shining eel, the bottom of our cart was covered, and we turned homeward.”
[Illustration.]
“Bull-Boat” or Coracle.
In fishing, hunting, and journeying, the woodland Indians needed some sort
of water craft. They had a number of different kinds of canoes. The
“dug-out,” cut from a single tree trunk, is still used in many of our
Southern streams; the Cherokees in their lovely North Carolina home have
them. Along the Northwest Coast, magnificent war-canoes, capable of
carrying fifty or sixty persons, were made from single giant logs; these
canoes often had decorative bow and stern pieces carved from separate
blocks. The birch-bark canoes were made over light wooden frames with
pieces of birch bark neatly fitted, sewed, and gummed, to keep out the
water. Almost all the Algonkin tribes and the Iroquois used them upon
their lakes and rivers; they were light enough to be carried easily across
the portages. A few tribes, the Mandans among others, had the light but
awkward “bull-boat,” or coracle, nearly circular, consisting of a light
framework covered with skin: such were chiefly used in ferrying across
rivers.