Adain the Hunter 319 



and splendor of the phenomenon. The waving of 

 the great curtain, as if wind-blown, was especially 

 impressive. 



Camping at Rocky Cut, on the Michigan Brule, 

 we were first introduced to the mysteries and charms 

 of a fire-hunt by old Adam himself, in the person 

 of a Chippewa chief. He had made advances on 

 the original Adam, in that he wore clothing and 

 lived in a log house, which, however, contained no 

 furniture. The women were engaged in sewing 

 birch bark with threads made of the roots of the 

 dwarf-pine, into those fine forms of canoes in the 

 building of which the Chippewas had no rivals 

 among the American Indians. The finished boat 

 was decorated with dyes extracted from the sumac, 

 the blood-root, the walnut, the bark of the black 

 oak, and other such sources, the wild artistic values 

 of which the artists did not appreciate, but which 

 were, in fact, what art at its best would have 

 selected. The little Cains and Abels of the families 

 were practicing with their bows and arrows, and the 

 young Eves were learning to prepare thread and to 

 sew the bark. It was noticed that the garments of 

 the children were sewed fast upon them, and were 

 not to be changed or laundered so long as they 

 would hold together. Probably this economic cus- 

 tom originated with the Eve of Moses. When she 

 wished to do her week's washing, all she had to do 

 was to pitch the children into the river Gihon, souse 

 and churn them, and thus laundry both the child 



