THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLEKY. 397 



with, the Great or Good Spirit painted on one side, and the Evil Spirit on the other. 

 If I can ever succeed in transporting it to New York and other Eastern cities, it will 

 he looked upon as a beautiful and exceedingly interesting specimen. — Pages 43, 44, 

 vol, 1, Catliu's Eight Yeai's. 



This is now in the Smithsonian Institution, but badly damaged. (For 

 method of striking or taking down and putting up lodges, see No. 4G6, 

 herein.) (For method of drying and preparing skins, see ^o. 597, herein.) 



CANOES AND SNOW-SHOES. 



Mr. Catliu was at the Falls of Saint Anthony, Minnesota, in 1835, and 

 saw the (3hippewas make a portage with their canoes (IS'o. 465). In his 

 letter No. 51 he writes of Indian canoes and snow-shoes. The effects 

 illustrated were at one time in his original collection. They were de- 

 stroyed by fire and water at Philadelphia, as has been noted. 



The bark canoe of the Chippevrays is, perhaps, the most beautiful and light model 

 of all the water crafts that ever were invented. They are generally made complete 

 with the rind of one birch tree, and so ingeniously shaped and sewed together, with 

 roots of the tamarack, which they call wat-tap, that they are water-tight, and ride 

 upon the water as light as a cork. They gracefully lean and dodge about, under the 

 skillful balance of an Indian or the ugliest squaw ; but like everything wild, are timid 

 and treacherous under the guidance of white man ; and, if he be not an experienced 

 equilibrist, ho is sure to get two or three times soused in his first endeavors at famil- 

 iar acquaintance with them. In Plate 240, letter a, the reader will see two specimens 

 of tliese canoes correctly drawn ; where he can contrast them and their shapes with the 

 log canoe, letter b (or " dug-out," as it is oftencalled in the Western regions), of the 

 Sioux, aud many other tribes; which is dug out of a solid log, with great labor, by these 

 ignorant people, who have but few tools to work with. 



In the same plate, letter c, I have also introduced the skin canoes of the Maadans 

 (of the Upper Missouri, of whom I have spoken in volume 1), which 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 i)ulls 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 wilderness of Amer- 

 ica, when all the other surrounding tribes construct their canoes in decidedly different 

 forms and of different materials. 



In the same plate, letter d, is a pair of Sioux (and in letter e of Chippewa) snow- 

 shoes, which are used in the deep snows of tlae winter, under the Indian's feet, to buoy 

 him up as he runs in pursuit of his game. The hoops or frames of these are made of 

 clastic wood, and the webbing of strings of rawhido, which form such a resistance to 

 the suow as to carry them over without sinking into it, and enabling them to come 

 up with their game, which is wallowing through the drifts, and easily overtaken, as 

 in tlio buffalo hunt, in Plate 109, volume I, Nos. 416, 417.— Page 138, vol. 2, Catlin'a 

 Eiglit Years. 



CEOW, PAWNEE, CHIPPEWA, AND MANDAN ROBES. 



The following four plates (Nos. 309, 310, 311, and 312) of Indians' robes 

 of buffalo-skins tanned and drawn in plain black or colors are reproduc- 

 tions of robes that were in this collection. The text can bo found on 

 pages 216-248, volume 2, Catliu's Eight Years. 



