396 USES OF PLANTS BY THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS  [fTH. ANN. 44 
family were in the sugar camp and he sent his wife to get some 
birch bark for making dishes as the other women did. She took 
an ax and was gone all day. When she came home at night she 
had a great bundle of bark on her back. This made him glad, for 
he thought she had been very industrious. She opened her bundle 
and said, “See what I have been doing all day.” Then she showed 
him quantities of patterns and pictures bitten in birch bark. Her 
bundle was full of them. She had been biting patterns all day 
instead of making dishes. 
The man was so ashamed that he hung his head and died. He 
could not bear to have people know that he had brought home such 
a good-for-nothing wife. 
Etching and self-patterns on birch bark.—Bark taken from birches 
in the early spring has the tender “ sap-bark ” of the ‘previous year 
next to the outer bark. If the bark gathered at this time is put in 
hot water the “ sap-bark ” turns dark brown while the outer layers 
of bark remain light in color. This renders possible a wide variety 
of decoration in contrasting colors. Dishes are made with this dark 
color as a foundation and the decoration is supplied with a sharp 
implement, the lines showing the light color of the under layer of 
bark and the contrast remaining after the bark has dried. The 
implement used for this purpose was a pointed stick or the “ splint- 
bone” from the heel of a deer, preferably a young doe. The bark 
is in the right stage for this work at the season of sugar making, 
and many sugar makuks are made with the dark surface of the bark 
on the outside, etched with simple decorations. A typical example 
is the sugar makuk in Plate 34, which is etched with parallel horizon- 
tal lines between which are vertical, diagonal, or zigzag lines arranged 
in simple groupings. The fresh sugar was often stored in them and 
used as a gift, the decoration making the gift more attractive. At 
the present time this work is frequently done in a freehand drawing 
of leaves and flowers, the designs being without artistic value. 
Another type of decoration made possible by the condition of the 
bark at this season may be called “self-patterns” in birch bark. 
Sometimes the pattern appears in the light color on a dark back- 
ground and sometimes the colors are reversed, the design being in 
the light shade. In a typical example of this work a rather large, 
conventional pattern cut from birch bark or paper is laid on the 
bark and a line is drawn around it. This is still done at Grand 
Portage, where old methods of work are continued. The design is 
etched on the inner surface of the freshly cut bark, cutting through 
the “sap-bark,” after which, if desired, the work may be laid aside. 
When it is to be finished the bark is moistened with hot water, and 
on the portion which is to be in light color the thin tissue of bark is 
removed in small particles or shreds with a sharp knife. Thus if 
