American Big-Game Hunting 



hair and dressed, constituted his summer 

 sheet or blanket. The dressed hide was used 

 for moccasins, leggings, shirts, and women's 

 dresses. Dressed cow-skins formed the 

 lodges, the warmest and most comfortable 

 portable shelters ever devised. Braided 

 strands of rawhide furnished them with 

 ropes and lines, and these were made also 

 from the twisted hair. The green hide was 

 sometimes used as a kettle, in which to boil 

 meat, or, stretched over a frame of boughs, 

 gave them coracles, or boats, for crossing 

 rivers. The tough, thick hide of the bull's 

 neck, allowed to shrink smooth, made a 

 shield which would turn a lance-thrust, an 

 arrow, or even the ball from an old-fashioned 

 smooth-bore gun. From the rawhide, the 

 hair having been shaved off, were made par- 

 fleches — envelop-like cases which served for 

 trunks or boxes — useful to contain small 

 articles. The cannon-bones and ribs were 

 used to make implements for dressing hides; 

 the shoulder-blades lashed to sticks made 

 hoes and axes, and the ribs runners for 

 small sledges drawn by dogs. The hoofs 

 were boiled to make a glue for fastening the 

 1 80 



