596 BUREAU OF AME-RICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



they dawb with Clay or Mud, and then pass over in these Canoes, by two, three, 

 or more at a time, according as they are in bigness. By reason of the lightness 

 of these Boats, they can easily carry them overland, if tliey foresee that they 

 are like to meet with any more Waters, that may impede their March ; or else 

 they leave them at the Water-side, making no farther account of them ; except 

 it be to repass the same Waters in their return. (Beverley, 1705, bk. 3, p. 19.) 



In other words, in the Southeast bark canoes were not the primary 

 means of transportation by water they had become in the Northeast, 

 that function having been taken over by dugouts, but they were still 

 employed as ferries or, as we shall see, in long-distance one-way trans- 

 portation down rivers, another kind of ferryage in which men and 

 goods could be rapidly borne toward points nearer the sea for trade 

 or war. Their occupants could then abandon them and return on foot. 

 That bark canoes made of various materials, birch and other, were well 

 known in interior sections of the Southeast, can be proved from a 

 number of sources. Beginning at the margin of the area, and, in 

 fact, a bit outside of it, we recall Smith's mention of the Susque- 

 hanna canoes made of "the barkes of trees, sewed with barke and 

 well luted with gumme," and canoes, or the material for them, was 

 disseminated thence toward the south (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, 

 p. 106). 



During the early spring of one year, it was reported that some of the Nanticoke 

 Indians had gone north to the vicinity of the Susquehanna River, where it 

 was thought they vrould remain 'till the Barque will peal soe they can make 

 Canooes (Semmes, 1937, p. 80). 



Wlien Henry Fleet was visiting the Nacotchtank Indians the Piscat- 

 taways came to him in "their birchen canoes" (Semmes, 1937, p. 90). 

 Timberlake (Williams ed., 1927, p. 88) speaks of bark canoes as Imown 

 to the Cherokee yet "seldom used but by the northern Indians." How- 

 ever, Yuchi Indians in this same region carried Gabriel Arthur on a 

 lengthy expedition to the south in one of them : 



There [at the head of Port Royal River, evidently the Savannah] they made 

 perriaugers of bark and soe past down ye streame with much swiftness. (Al- 

 vord, 1912, p. 220.) 



La Salle's famous voyage to the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682 

 was made in canoes of elm bark, but these were manufactured outside 

 of the Gulf area. At the same time Adair (1775, p. 381) relates how 

 the Chickasaw used to embark in "large cypress-bark canoes" to ap- 

 prehend French convoys on the Mississippi. A Chitimacha inform- 

 ant had heard his father speak of "elm bark" canoes, but it is doubt- 

 ful whether this was anything more than a temporary device since 

 it crops up in a territory far removed from the bark-canoe country 

 (Swanton, 1911, p. 347). 



Where birchbark canoes were not used as ferries, their place was 

 taken by rafts. The raft (cajeu) is described by Du Pratz as 



