390 USES OF PLANTS BY THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS [B8TH. ANN. 44 
tipis, and sometimes on the roof of the lodge in which maple sugar 
was made, this lodge having a frame like that of a house. 
Meat bag—TVhis was commonly made of birch bark covered with 
soft tanned leather (pl. 54), but was also made of rawhide. It was 
carried on a pack strap and was used for carrying dried meat or 
other provisions needed on a journey. It was customary to open the 
bag and allow the flap to become a sort of table, from which the 
fragments of food were easily returned to the bag, a custom which 
illustrates the lack of wastefulness among these people. 
Fans.—These were made in the woods whenever needed, two pieces 
of bark being sewed together and slipped into a cleft stick, which 
served as a handle. (Pl. 55, 6.) A man might carry a fan orna- 
mented with feathers, one specimen having the bark cut off squarely 
and a row of stiff feathers forming the upper portion of the fan. 
(PL. 55, ¢.) Plate 55, a, shows an owl-feather fan with handle of 
birch bark. A woman never used an ornamented fan. 
Torches and tinder.—V arious forms of torches were made by twist- 
ing birch bark into cylinders, some of which would last an entire 
night, and were used by travellers. Slender torches, which could be 
stuck on the end of a stick that was upright in the ground, were used 
by women when working around the camp. A woman kept a supply 
of scraps of thin birch bark for use in kindling fires. 
Figures.—A variety of figures were cut from birch bark. (Pls. 
52, ce; 56.) Some appear to have been for pleasure, while others 
represent dream symbols and totem marks (clan symbols). 
Patterns —Kvery woman who did beadwork had patterns cut from 
stiff birch bark which she laid on the material to be decorated. Mrs. 
English said that she remembered when patterns were pricked with 
a stiff fishbone around the outline and then cut with scissors. In this 
way the pattern was evident to the eye before the cutting was begun. 
With very few exceptions the cut patterns collected by the writer 
show no trace of a marking implement, the appearance being that 
the patterns are cut without tracing. (PI. 57.) 
Transparencies—The most primitive form of Chippewa art is 
that in which the only material is a broad leaf or thin piece of birch 
bark and the only tools are human teeth and deft fingers. The leaf 
or birch bark is folded and indented with the teeth, this process being 
repeated according to the elaborateness of the design. The result 
is a transparency, the surface of the leaf or bark forming the back- 
ground and the tooth marks forming the pattern. The native word 
for this is composed of two words, one meaning picture, and the 
other he bites, or gnaws. The leaf and bark are not wholly opaque 
and the tooth marks do not cut entirely through them, so the finished 
work shows a heavier and a lighter density of material which is 
