MALLERY. | MAKING OF PICTOGRAPHS. 219 
SECTION 2. 
INSTRUMENTS FOR DRAWING. 
Drawings upon small slabs of wood, found among the Ojibwa, were 
made with a piece of red-hot wire or thin iron rod hammered to a point. 
Such figures are blackened by being burned in. 
When in haste or when better materials are not at hand, the Hi- 
datsa sometimes drew upon a piece of wood or the shoulder-blade of a 
buffalo with a piece of charcoal from the fire or with a piece of red 
chalk or red ocher, with which nearly every warrior is at all times 
supplied. 
Mr. A. W. Howitt, in Manuscript Notes on Australian Pictographs, 
says: 
Not having any process such as is used by some of the savage tribes to soften skins, 
the harshness of these rugs is remedied by marking upon them lines and patterns, 
which being partly cut through the skin give to it a certain amount of suppleness, 
In former times, before the white man enabled the black fellow to supplement his 
meager stock of implements with those of civilization, a Kumai made use of the sharp 
edge of a mussel shell (unio) to cut these patterns. At the present time the sharpened 
edge of the bowl of a metal spoon is used, partly because it forms a convenient in- 
strument, partly, perhaps, because its bowl bears a resemblance in shape to the 
familiar ancestral tool. 
SECTION 3. 
COLORING MATTER AND ITS APPLICATION. 
Painting upon robes or skins is executed by means of thin strips of 
wood or sometimes of bone. Tufts of antelope hair are also used, by 
tying them to sticks to make a brush, but this is evidently a modern 
innovation. Pieces of wood, one end of which is chewed so as to pro- 
duce a loose fibrous brush, are also used at times, as has been specially 
observed among the Teton Dakota. 
The Hidatsa and other Northwest Indians usually employ a piece of 
buffalo rib or a piece of hard wood having an elliptical form. This is 
dipped ina solution of glue, with or without color, and a tracing is 
made, which is subsequently filled up and deepened by a repetition of 
the process with the same or a stronger solution of the color. 
Of late years in the United States colors of civilized manufacture 
are readily obtained by the Indians for painting and decoration. Fre- 
quently, however, when the colors of commerce can not be obtained, 
the aboriginal colors are still prepared and used. The ferruginous 
clays of various shades of brown, red, and yellow occur in nature so 
widely distributed that these are the most common and leading tints. 
Black is generally prepared by grinding fragments of charcoal into a 
very fine powder. Among some tribes, as has also been found in some 
of the “ancient” pottery from the Arizona ruins, clay had evidently 
been mixed with charcoal to give better body. The black color made by 
some of the Innuit tribes is made with blood and charcoal intimately 
