308 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



is then hung in the smoke to dry, and when cui'ed, looks very much like citron. 

 It is somewhat tougher than pork, but sweet (if the whale has been recently 

 killed), and has none of that nauseous taste which the whites attribute to it. 

 AVIien cooked, it is common to boil the strips about twenty minutes ; but it is 

 often eaten cold and as an accompaniment to dried halibut." (Page 19, etc.). 



" The principal articles manufactured by the Makahs are canoes and whaling- 

 implements, conical hats, bark mats, fishing-lines, fish-hooks, knives and daggers, 

 bows and arrows, dog's hair blankets, feather ca2:)es, and various other articles. 

 The largest and best canoes are made by the Clyoquots and Nittinats on Van- 

 couver Island ; the cedar there being of a quality greatly superior to that found 

 on or near Cape Flattery. Canoes of the medium and small sizes are made by 

 the Makahs from cedar procured a short distance up the Strait or on the Tsuess 

 River. After the tree is cut down and the bark stripped, the log is cut at the 

 length required for the canoes, and the upper portion removed by splitting it off 

 with wedges, until the greatest width is attained. The two ends are then rough- 

 hewed to a tapering form and a portion of the inside dug out. The log is next 

 turned over and properly shaped for a bottom, then turned back and more 

 chopped from the inside, until enough has been removed from both inside and 

 out to permit it to be easily handled, when it is slid into the water and taken to 

 the lodge of the maker, where he finishes it at his leisure. In some cases they 

 finish a canoe in the woods, but generally it is brought home as soon as they can 

 haul it to the stream. Before the introduction of iron tools, the making of a 

 canoe was a work of much difficulty. Their hatchets were made of stone, and 

 their chisels of mussel shells ground to a sharp edge by rubbing them on a piece 

 of sandstone. It required much time and extreme labor to cut down a large 

 cedar, and it was only the chiefs who had a number of slaves at their disposal 

 who attempted such large ojierations. Their method was to gather round a tree 

 as many as could work, and these chipped away with their stone hatchets till the 

 tree was literally gnawed down, after the fashion of beavers. Then to shape it 

 and hollow it out was also a tedious job, and many a month would intervene 

 between the times of commencing to fell the tree, and finishing the canoe. The 

 implements they use at present are axes to do the rough-hewing, and chisels 

 fitted to handles ; these last are used like a cooper's adze, and remove the wood 

 in small chips. The process of finishing is very slow. A white carpenter could 

 smooth off the hull of a canoe Avith a plane, and do more in two hours than the 

 Indian with his chisel can do in a week. The outside, when it is completed, 

 serves as a guide for finishing the inside, the workman gauging the requisite 

 thickness by placing one hand on the outside and the other on the inside, and 

 passing them over the work. He is guided in modelling by the eye, seldom, if 

 ever, using a measure of any kind ; and some are so expert in this that they 

 make lines as true as the most skilful mechanic can. If the tree is not suf- 



