368 Memoirs Bcrnicc P. Bishop Muscuni 



European times the carving was done with sharks" teeth, rats" teeth, or shells, but 

 for nearly a century these implements have been rejilaced by imi^lements of iron. 

 Practically all the tools now used by carvers are home-made and are crude, but 

 effective. They consist of small chisels, made from large nails ground to a 

 straight edge; curved chisels, also made from nails, and small gouges, which 

 are usually made from umbrella ribs. Knives are apparently never used for 

 carving. 



Containers are always completely shaped and polished as if for use before carving, a 

 practise which increases the difficulties of the artist as it makes it impossible to conceal any 

 slips of the chisel. The bowl to be carved is soaked in a stream for some time to soften the 

 wood, and when not being worked on is usually kept in water. Only beginners draw the de- 

 signs upon the utensil before carving; the skilled workman carves entirely free hand and 

 arranges the spacing of even the most intricate designs entirely by eye. The chisel, usually 

 fixed in a rough wooden handle, is held with the bit below the hand, and the carver appears 

 to work with equal facility either toward or away from the body. The incision is first marked 

 out by pressing the chisel into the wood vertically, and is then made by pushing the tool 

 along horizontally, with one corner of the bit at the bottom of the original vertical cut and 

 the edge, sloping upward to the surface of the bowl at a variable angle. .\ long triangular 

 sliver is thus removed ; any irregularities in the cutting are dressed down with small chisels. 

 In a very large proportion of the carved specimens all the incisions have this triangular form, 

 but when wide spaces are to be cut away they are outlined by two cuts of the sort just de- 

 scribed, the wood between is removed, and the bottom of the space dressed flat or left with 

 a low central ridge. Curved chisels are used to dress the vertical sides of incisions in curved 

 designs, while the gouges are used principally for small details or shallow designs which 

 are incised rather than carved. 



Modern carvers have a strong tendency to enlarge and simplify the de- 

 tails of the designs and broaden the incisions in order to increase the speed of 

 production. 



Carved decoration appears to have been most commonly used upon round 

 bowls, next in frequency being the boxes and the tureen-like covered dishes. At 

 least some of the other forms were probably carved in pre-European times but 

 no carved fofo or oval bowls, with the exception of the bird effigies, are known. 

 Bird effigies and some boxes were carved only upon the projecting knob, and a 

 few bowls and dishes were decorated with a carved band below the rim. but as 

 a rule the carving covered the entire outside of the utensil. In applying the de- 

 signs the surface was rarelv, if ever, treated as a whole, being broken u]i into 

 a number of sections which were treated as separate units. In the actual process 

 of carving the outlining of these sections upon the bowl was the first step, and 

 the filling designs were applied afterward. A symmetrical arrangement of the 

 sections appears to have always been intended, and there is usually more or less 

 agreement between the filling designs of corresponding sections. In decorating 

 a circular bowl the bottom was usually treated as a single unit, although it was 

 sometimes divided into two or more parts. The sides were divided either into 

 horizontal zones or vertical sections, and the boundaries marked either by plain 



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