IMPLEMENTS. WEAPONS. 419 



without the assistance of heat. Metallic vessels were quite 

 unknown to the aborigines of North America. 



The implements of the Shoshonees, or Snake Indians, are 

 described by Wyeth. Their possessions were confined to 

 "the pot, bow and arrow, knives, graining tools, awls, root 

 digger, fish-spears, nets, a kind of boat or raft, the pipe, 

 mats for shelter, and implements to produce fire."* 



The pot was made of " long tough roots, wound in plies 

 around a centre, shortening the circumference of the outer 

 plies so as to form a vessel in the shape of an inverted bee- 

 hive." They were so well made as to be quite watertight, and 

 though of course they could not be put on the fire, still they 

 were used for boiling, in the manner already described as 

 practised by other savages. The Dacotahs are said to have 

 sometimes boiled animals in their own skins, taking the skin 

 off whole, suspending it at the four corners, and making use 

 of boiling stones as usual. They had also stone vessels, but 

 these were rare, and probably used only as mortars. 



Their bows are very skilfully made of the horns of the 

 mountain sheep and elk, or sometimes of wood. " The string 

 is of twisted sinew, and is used loose, and those using this 

 bow require a guard to protect the hand which holds it." 

 The arrow is driven with such force that it will pass right 

 through the body of a horse or buffalo, f and in the account of 

 De Soto's expedition, it is stated that on one occasion an 

 arrow went through the saddle and housings of a horse and 

 penetrated one-third of its length into the body. Although 

 on the whole far inferior to the rifle, still in hunting the bow 

 has the one great advantage of silence. Among several of the 

 tribes, arrow- making was a distinct profession. The arrow- 

 heads are of obsidian, about three-fourths of an inch long 



* Schoolcraft, vol. i., p. 212. Catlin, Lc. vol. i., p. 31 ; vol. ii., p. 



f Schoolcraft, I.e. vol. iii., pp. 35, 46 ; 212 ; McKean and Hall's Indian Tribes, 

 Kane's North American Indians, p. 141 ; vol. ii., p. 4. 



