296 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



dans (of the Upper Missouri) are made almost round like a tub, by straining a 

 buffalo's skin over a frame of wicker work, made of willow or other boughs. 

 The woman in paddling these awkward tubs, stands in the bow, and makes the 

 stroke with the paddle by reaching it forward in the water and drawing it to her, 

 by which means she pulls the canoe along with some considerable speed. These 

 very curious and rudely constructed- canoes are made in the form of the Welsh 

 coracle; and, if I mistake not, propelled in the same manner, which is a very 

 curious circumstance ; inasmuch as they are found in the heart of the great wil- 

 derness of America, when all other surrounding tribes construct their canoes in 

 decidedly different forms, and of different materials." (Vol. II, page 138).* 



Powers (Stephen): Tribes of California; Contributions to North American 

 Ethnology; Vol. Ill, Washington, 1877. [The Yurok ; Klamath River]. "As 

 the redwood grows only along the Lower Klamath, the Yurok have a monopoly 

 of making canoes, and they sell many to the Karok. A canoe on the Klamath 

 is not pointed like the Chippewa canoe, but the width at either end is equal to 

 the tree's diameter. On the great bar across the mouth of the river, and all 

 along the coast for eighty miles, there are tens of thousands of mighty redwoods 

 cast upon the strand, having been either floated down by the rivers or grubbed 

 down by the surf. Hence the Indians are not obliged to fell any trees, and have 

 only to burn them into suitable lengths. In making the canoe they spread pitch 

 on whatever place they wish to reduce, and when it has burned deep enough they 

 clap on a piece of raw bark and extinguish the fire. By this means they round 

 them out with wonderful symmetry and elegance, leaving the sides and ends 

 very thin and as smooth as if they had been sandpapered. At the stern they 

 burn and polish out a neat little bracket which serves as a seat for the boatman. 

 They spent an infinity of puddering on these canoes (nowadays they use iron 

 tools and dispatch the work in a few days), two Indians sometimes working on 

 one five or six months, burning, scraping, polishing with stones. When com- 

 pleted, they are sold for various sums, ranging from ten to thirty dollars, or even 

 more. They are not as handsome as the Smith River or the T'sin-iik canoes, but 

 quite as serviceable. A large one will carry five tons of merchandise, and in 

 early days they used to take many cargoes of fish from the Klamath, shooting 

 the dangerous rapids and surf at the mouth with consummate skill, going boldly 

 to sea in heavy weather, and reaching Crescent City, twenty-two miles distant, 

 whence they returned with merchandise. - 



"In catching salmon they employ principally nets woven of fine roots or 

 grass, which are stretched across eddies in the Klamath, always with the mouth 



* These tub-shaped boats are also used to some extent by the Aricaras and Minnetarees. Mr. Catlin, it is well 

 known, inclines to the view that the Mandans are partly descendants of the Welsh of Prince Madoc's expedition. 

 The Welsh coracles and Mandan boats, at any rate, remind one of the curious circular skin-covered boats in use 

 on the river Euphrates in the time of Herodotus (I, 194). Some of these latter, however, were of large size. 



