ETHNOLOGICAL MATERIAL jh* 



of the Indian birch-bark canoe. It contains but a single piece 

 of bark so that the seams between the sections of the large 

 canoes are not represented. It is sewed at the ends and top 

 with wattap which is 0.2 inch wide and so closely placed that 

 there is no space between the turns except upon the curved 

 ends. There is a light and roughly made gunwale nailed on 

 outside the wattap binding. It is lined with spruce which com- 

 pletely covers the bark on the inside. There are ten ribs, rather 

 roughly made. A thin upright piece at each end cuts off a 

 short space next the stem and stern. It is gummed at the ends 

 as high as the water line only. There are two paddles with 

 the canoe, which are of spruce, 23 inches long and 1.8 wide. 

 The blade is nearly as long as the handle; it is flat upon one 

 side and convex upon the other; the end is sharpened at an 

 angle of 45 degrees. 



Skin Scrapers. There are four instruments in the collection 

 which have been used in dressing skins; three are to be used 

 with one hand and one is double-handled. No. 11,548 repre- 

 sents the type that is most used. It is a graining tool made 

 from the tibia of a moose, rounded off with an ax and obliquely 

 cut to a sharp edge just above the distal enlargement. This 

 edge is 1.5 inches across and contains 13 teeth. Attached to 

 the dried ligaments of the proximal end is a mooseskin thong 

 which forms a loop which prevents the hand from slipping 

 down the shaft. This specimen was obtained at the Grand 

 Rapids of the Saskatchewan and is almost identical with No. 

 10,838 from Rae. 



There is a scraper, No. 11,228, of the same pattern from the 

 Piegan Indian reservation near Macleod. It is of iron covered 

 on the handle with cowhide. 



The beaming tool, No. 11,547, from Grand Rapids, is a tibia 

 with one side of the shaft cut away leaving a sharp edge. It is 

 used as is a drawing knife, the broad ends serving as handles. 

 When using this scraper the skin is stretched over a short, 

 smooth log, six or eight inches in diameter. 



Ladles. These are made of musk-ox or mountain sheep horn. 

 Before the hunt in the spring of 1894, there were but two in the 

 camp of six lodges, but after we returned each family was pro- 

 vided with one or two, so that I supposed them to be lost or 

 thrown away during their migrations when everything not abso- 



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