SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 591 



He continues his discussion of apparatus connected with Floridian 

 canoe culture as follows : 



Two tackle-blocks, real prehistoric pulleys, that we found, may have pertained 

 to such canoes as these. Each was three inches long, oval, one side rounded, the 

 other cut in at the edges, or rabbetted so to say. The tenon-like portion was 

 gouged out midway, transversely pierced, and furnished with a smooth peg or 

 pivot over which the cordage turned. I have already mentioned the finding of 

 a paddle near the mouth of the inlet canal ... It was neatly shaped, the handle 

 round and lengthy, although burned ofC at the end, and the blade also long, leaf- 

 shaped, and tapered to a sharp point, convex or beveled on one side, flat or 

 slightly spooned or concave on the other. The splintered gunwales and a portion 

 of the prow of a long, light cypress-wood canoe, and various fragments of a large 

 but clumsier boat of some soft spongy kind of wood — gumbo-limbo, probably — 

 were found down toward the middle of the court. Not far from the remains of 

 these I came across an ingenious anchor. It consisted of a bunch of large triton- 

 shells roughly pierced and lashed together with tightly twisted cords of bark 

 and fibre so that the long, spike-like ends stood out radiatingly, like the points 

 of a star. They had all been packed full of sand and cement, so as to render 

 them, thus bunched, suflSciently heavy to hold a good-sized boat. Near the lower 

 edge of the eastern bench lay another anchor. It was made of flat, heart-shaped 

 stones, similarly perforated and so tied and cemented together with fibre and a 

 kind of vegetable gum and sand, that the points stood out radiatingly in pre- 

 cisely the same manner. Yet another anchor was formed from a single boulder 

 of coraline limestone a foot in diameter. Partly by nature, more by art, it was 

 shaped to resemble the head of a porpoise perforated for attachment at the eye- 

 sockets. Balers made from large conch shells crushed in at one side, or of 

 wood, shovel shaped, or else scoop shaped, with handles turned in, were abundant. 

 (Gushing, 1896, pp. 365-366.) 



One of the earliest descriptions of the manufacture of dugout canoes, 

 that by Hariot, is also one of the best: 



The manner of makinge their boates in Virginia is verye wonderfull. For 

 whereas they want Instruments of yron, or other like vnto ours, yet they knowe 

 howe to make them as handsomelye, to saile with whear they liste in their 

 Riuers, and to fishe withall, as ours. First, they choose some longe, and thicke 

 tree, accordinge to the bignes of the boate which they would frame, and make a 

 fyre on the grownd abowt the Roote thereof, kindlinge the same by little, and little 

 with drie mosse of trees, and chipps of woode that the flame should not mounte 

 opp to highe, and burue to muche of the lengthe of the tree. When yt is almost 

 burnt through, and readye to fall they make a new fyre, which they suffer to 

 burne vntill the tree fall of yts owne accord. Then burninge of the topp, and 

 bowghs of the tree in suche wyse that the bodie of the same may Retayne his iust 

 lengthe, they raise yt vppon poles laid ouer cross wise vppon forked posts, at 

 suche a reasonable heighte as they may handsomlye worke vppon yt. Then take 

 they of the barke with certayne shells: they reserue the innermost parte of the 

 lennke [bark?], for the nethermost parte of the boate. On the other side they 

 make a fyre accordinge to the lengthe of the bodye of the tree, sauinge at botii 

 the endes. That which they thinke is sufficientlye burned they quenche and 

 scrape away the shells, and makinge a new fyre they burne yt agayne, and so 

 they continue sometymes burninge and sometymes scrapinge, vntill the boate 

 haue suflScient bothowmes. [PI. 74.] (Hariot, 1893, pi. 12.) 



