10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



SO that pulling would revolve the stick rapidly in either direction, 

 starting a friction fire on the punk. 



They still have hammers made from a rounded stone fastened to 

 the end of a stick with a string of caribou-skin. These are used to 

 break up bones for cooking, and to make arrow-heads. My inter- 

 preter has seen stone hammers in use, and he also says that stone 

 axes for chopping down trees were used some time ago, although 

 he never saw one. Hunting knives are made of bone ground flat 

 and sharp on both edges, and they occasionally have copper knives 

 of the same pattern, which were secured in trade from the White 

 River Indians. One of their most useful weapons, the spear, was 

 made by binding a hunting knife of caribou-horn to the end of a 

 pole about 6 feet long. 



Birchwood is used for making bows, arrow-shafts, frames for 

 fish-nets, snow-shoes, toboggans, and canoes, and their woodwork 

 is nearly always painted with red ochre, which is secured from the 

 banks of a creek near the village of Nation, about thirty miles down 

 the river from Eagle. They say that this creek is red from the 

 ochre, which can be gathered in handfuls from the mud in the 

 swampy places along the banks. In former times this pigment repre- 

 sented an important article of commerce, and was carried to a great 

 distance and traded with other tribes. They used it also for painting 

 their faces in the dances. 



"Babiche" is a tough string made of walrus hide, secured in trade 

 from the lower river Indians and used for making snow-shoes and 

 fish-nets. 



Arrow-heads are about five inches long and made of caribou-horn 

 or bone, and bound into the split shafts with fine sinews. 



The natives still build a style of canoe characteristic of the upper 

 Yukon. It is of birch bark, fastened to a frame by lacing with 

 the slender roots of trees. The bark is fitted over the frame, and 

 then about a dozen squaws hold a sort of sewing-bee, as they sit 

 along the sides of the canoe and lace the bark through holes punc- 

 tured along the edges by a sharp bone awl. The cracks are filled 

 with pitch by the supervisor to make the canoe water-tight. This 

 is a product entirely free from the influence of civilization. White 

 men do not use them, because they tip too easily. 



