18 'J 2-9 3.] 



KOTES CN THE VVKSTKHN DENES. 



69 



This implement is used in connection with grease or fat scraping of any 

 description. 



}■ ig. 50. i size. 



Once the hide has been freed of most of its fat and blood, it is soaked 

 in cold, and then in warm, watei, after which one of its extremities is 

 lashed up around the smaller end of a st('Ut pole leaning on any kind of 

 support, a wall, a fence, etc The hair is then removed by energetic 

 action on the skin hanging down over the pole with a scraper* formed 

 of the tibia of a cariboo (fig. 50). By reason of the peculiar tenacity of 

 the hair, moose skins are now operated on with a short curved steel knife. 

 But the bone instrument shown above is still very extensively employed 

 in connection with any other kind of hair scraping. 



After having been thoroughly rubbed with the brain of the animal, its 

 skin is next extended within a wooden frame as is practised by most 

 tribes of Aborigines. The holes near the edges through which the line 



Fi- 51. 



which fastens it to the frame is passed, were formerly and are still in some 

 localities, pierced with bone awls -|- identical in form and material with 

 those occasionally found iri mounds. Tliey are of the fibula bone of the 

 cariboo, or, as in fig. 52, of the black bear. The latter are more common 

 among the Tsi[Koh'tin. In times past such awls were resorted to when- 

 ever any skin or bark perforations, such as are incident to the art of 

 canoe building or sewing bark vessels, were found necessary. They are 

 now obsolete, steel having almost entirely replaced bone in the fabrica- 

 tion of any such tools. Yet the specimens illustrated above were in use 

 among the Carriers and the TsilKoh'tin immediately prior to their being 

 given me. 



* Pe-na-3lqc, "wherewith one scrapes off" {i.e., hair) ; fourth category. 

 •\ 3^kwPt-ts3/, " knee-bone awl " ; third category. 



