THE INDIANS OF CAPE FLATTERY. 



35 



Fip. 17. 



which have been extensively distributed and used among the coast tribes of the 

 vicinity. Those who have been so fortunate as to obtain iron hammers use them 

 in preference to those made of stone ; but they generally use a smooth stone like a 

 cobbler s lap-stone for an anvil. The common hammer is simply a paving stone. 

 They, however, make hammers, or, more properly speaking, pestles, with which 

 to drive their wooden wedges in splitting fire wood or making boards. These 

 pestles are shaped like that shown in Fig. 17. They 

 are made of the hardest jade that can be procured, and 

 are wrought into shape by the slow drudgery of striking 

 them with a smaller fragment, which knocks off a little 

 bit at each blow. Months are consumed in the process, 

 and it is one of their superstitions that from first to 

 last no woman must touch the materials, nor the work 

 be done except at night, when the maker can toil in 

 solitude unnoticed by others. If a woman should han 

 dle the pestle, it would break; or if other persons 

 should look on while the work was in progress the stone 

 would split or clip off. The night is preferred, because 

 they imagine the stone is softer then than during the 

 day. Any one can form an idea of the nature of this 

 manufacture and its tedious labor by taking two nodules 

 of flint or a couple of paving stones and attempting to 

 reduce one of them to a required shape by striking them 

 together. Yet these Indians not only fashion their 

 hammers in this manner, but they make \cry nice jobs, 

 and some that I have seen had quite a smooth surface 

 with a degree of polish. They are valued, according to the hardness of the stone, 

 at from one to three blankets. 



A canoe-maker s stock of tools is quite small, consisting only of an axe, a stone 

 hammer, some wooden wedges, a chisel, a knife, and a gimlet. Those who are so 

 fortunate as to possess a saw will use it occasionally; but the common method of 

 cutting off a piece of wood or a board is with the axe or chisel. And yet with 

 these simple and primitive tools they contrive to do all the carpenter work 

 required. 



The principal articles manufactured by the Makahs arc canoes and whaling 

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

 bows and arrows, dog s hair blankets, feather capes, and various other articles 

 which will hereafter be named and described. As I before remarked, the 

 largest and best canoes are made by the Clyoquots and Nittinats on Vancouver 

 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 Tip 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 oft with 

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



Stone hammer. 



