36 THE INDIANS OF CAPE FLATTERY. 



to a tapering form and a portion of the inside dug out. The log is next turned 

 over and properly shaped for a bottom, then turned back and more chopped from 

 the inside, until enough has been removed from both inside and out to permit it to 

 be easily handled, when it is slid into the water and taken to the lodge of the 

 maker, where he finishes it at his leisure. In some cases they finish a canoe in the 

 woods, but generally it is brought home as soon as they can haul it to the stream. 

 Before the introduction of iron tools, the making of a canoe was a work of much 

 difficulty. Their hatchets were made of stone, and their chisels of mussel shells 

 ground to a sharp edge by rubbing them on a piece of sandstone. It required 

 much time and extreme labor to cut down a large cedar, and it was only the chiefs 

 who had a number of slaves at their disposal who attempted such large operations. 

 Their method was to gather round a tree as many as could work, and these chipped 

 away with their stone hatchets till the tree was literally gnawed down, after the 

 fashion of beavers. Then to shape it and hollow it out was also a tedious job, and 

 many a month would intervene between the times of commencing to fell the tree, 

 and finishing the canoe. The implements they use at present are axes to do the 

 rough-hewing, and chisels fitted to handles, as shown in Figure 1 5 ; these last 

 are used like a cooper s adze, and remove the wood in small chips. The process 

 of finishing is very slow. A white carpenter could smooth off the hull of a canoe 

 with a plane, and do more in two hours than the Indian with his chisel can do in a 

 week. The outside, when it is completed, serves as a guide for finishing the inside, 

 the workman gauging the requisite thickness by placing one hand on the outside 

 and the other on the inside and passing them over the work. He is guided in 

 modelling by the eye, seldom if ever using a measure of any kind ; and some are 

 so expert in this that they make lines as true as the most skilful mechanic can. 

 If the tree is not sufficiently thick to give the required width, they spring the top 

 of the sides apart, in the middle of the canoes, by steaming the wood. The 

 inside is filled with water which is heated by means of red hot stones, and a slow 

 fire is made on the outside by rows of bark laid on the ground, a short distance 

 off, but near enough to warm the cedar without burning it. This renders the 

 wood very flexible in a short time, so that the sides can be opened from six 

 to twelve inches. The canoe is now strengthened, and kept in form by sticks or 

 stretchers, similar to a boat s thwarts. The ends of these stretchers are fastened 

 with withes made from tapering cedar limbs, twisted, and used instead of cords, 

 and the water is then emptied out; this process is not often employed, however, 

 the log being usually sufficiently wide in the first instance. As the projections for 

 the head and stern pieces cannot be cut from the log, they are carved from separate 

 pieces and fastened on by means of withes and wooden pegs. A very neat and 

 peculiar scarph is used in joining these pieces to the body of the canoe, and the 

 parts are fitted together in a simple and effectual manner. First the scarph is made 

 on the canoe ; this is rubbed over with grease and charcoal ; next the piece to be 

 fitted is hewn as nearly like the scarph as the eye can guide, and applied to the part 

 which has the grease on it. It is then removed, and the inequalities being at once 

 discovered and chipped off with the chisel, the process is repeated until the whole 

 of the scarph or the piece to be fitted is uniformly marked with the blackened 



