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10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 77 
abound; sturgeon and white fish are most common, though they 
have abundance of pike, trout, suckers, and pickerel. They some- 
times have the precaution to preserve some for the summer con- 
sumption, this is done by opening and cleaning the fish and then 
carefully drying it in the smoke or sun, after which it is tied up very 
tight in large parcels, wrapped up in bark and kept for use; their 
meat, 1n summer, is cured in the same manner. . . Their meat is 
either boiled in a kettle, or roasted by means of a sharp stick, fixed 
in the ground at a convenient distance from the fire, and on which 
the meat is fixed and turned occasionally towards the fire, until the - 
whole is thoroughly done; their fish is dressed in the same manner.” 
(Op. cit., pp. 330-331.) 
The method of cooking food, as mentioned in the preceding para- 
graph, is graphically illustrated in the old sketch made a century 
ago, now reproduced in plate 6, a. This shows a family gathered 
about a small fire where food is being prepared, and beyond is a 
bark-covered wigwam. The sketch bears the legend, “A. family 
from the tribe of the wild Sautaux Indians on the Red River. — 
Drawn from nature.” It indicates the primitive dress and appear- 
ance of the people, and it is of interest to compare this with the 
photograph which is reproduced in plate 6, 6, showing another small 
group of the people three-quarters of a century later. Such were the 
changes within that period. 
Similar to the preceding were the habitations shown by Kane in 
a sketch made during the early summer of 1845, the original paint- 
ing being reproduced as plate 7, a. This was described as “an 
Indian encampment amongst the islands of Lake Huron; the wig- 
wams are made of birch-bark, stripped from the trees in large pieces 
and sewed together with long fibrous roots; when the birch tree can- 
not be conveniently had, they weave rushes into mats . . . for cover- 
ing, which are stretched round in the same manner as the bark, upon 
eight or ten poles tied together at the top, and stuck in the ground 
at the required circle of the tent, a hole being left at the top to 
permit the smoke to go out. The fire is made in the centre of the _ 
lodge, and the inmates sleep all round with their feet towards it.” 
(Kane, (1), pp. 6-7.) The interesting painting could well have 
been made among the Ojibway camps or settlements of northern 
Minnesota instead of representing a group of wigwams located 
many miles eastward, but this tends to prove the similarity of the 
small villages in the region where large sheets of birch bark were 
to be obtained. 
Between the loosely placed sheets of bark were necessarily many 
openings through which the wind could enter, and in addition was 
the open space at the top intentionally left as a vent through which 
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