252 THE INDIAN BOW. 
the other standing is a half breed, an employée 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company; his father was a 
French Canadian, his mother a Cree squaw. 
The illustration in which there are three figures 
represents three Spokan Indians ;* one, the figure 
to the left, has a stone celt, which I obtained; it 
is now in the British Museum collection, and 
deemed the finest specimen they possess. There 
was no record as to how it became his property, 
all I could glean respecting its history was that 
for a long period it had been handed down from 
father to son as a valuable heirloom; hereditary 
inheritance I find with Indians, as with whites, is 
weak to resist the all-potent dollar. The centre 
figure holds a rifle, which was not his own, but 
borrowed from Macdonald, the chief trader, for the 
occasion. The figure on the right has a bow and 
arrow, both of which were also purchased. The 
Indian bow is a masterpiece of skilful manufac- 
ture; its elasticity does not in any way depend 
on the wood used in its construction, but on the 
elastic ligament, procured from the fore leg of 
the elk; this is affixed to the wooden framework 
of the bow by a kind of glue made from the skin 
of the ‘white’ salmon, a glue when hardened 
resisting the influence of wet to redissolve it. 
* Vide illustration: Three Spokan Indians. 
