FISHING VESSELS AND BOATS OF THE PACIFIC * COAST. 
19 
Tbe following notes on the construction of the canoes used by the Makali Indians 
of Cape Flattery. Washington, are from the writings of Swan: 
A canoe-maker’s stock of tools is quite small, consisting only of an axe, a stone hammer, some 
wooden wedges, a chisel, a knife, and a gimlet. Those so fortunate as to possess a saw will use it 
occasionally ; hut the common method of cutting oft' a piece of wood or a hoard is with the axe or 
chisel. And yet with these simple and primitive tools they contrive to do all the carpenter work 
required. Canoes of the medium and small sizes are made hy the Makahs from cedar procured a short 
distance up the strait or on the Tsuess Eiver. After . the tree is cut down and the hark stripped, 
the log is cut at the length required for the canoe, and the upper portion removed hy splitting it oft' 
with wedges until the greatest width is attained. The two ends are then roughly hewed to a tapering 
form and a portion of the inside dug out. The log is next turned over and properly shaped for a 
bottom, then turned hack and more chopped from the inside, until enough has heen removed from hoth 
inside and out to permit it to he easily handled, when it is slid into the water and taken to the lodge 
of the maker, where he finishes it at his leisure. In some cases they finish a canoe in the woods, hut 
generally it is brought home as soon as they can haul it to the stream. 
Before the introduction of iron tools, the making of a canoe was a work of much difficulty. 
Their hatchets were made of stone, and their chisels of mussel shells ground to a sharp edge hy rubbing 
them on a piece of sandstone. It required much time and extreme labor to cut down a large cedar, 
and it was only the chiefs who had a number of slaves at their disposal who attempted such 
large operations. Their method was to gather around a tree as many as could work, and these 
chipped away with their stone hatchets until the tree was literally gnawed down, after the fashion ot 
heavers. Then to shape it and to hollow it out was also a tedious job, and many a month would 
intervene between the times of commencing to fell the tree and finishing the canoe. The implements 
they use at present are axes to do the rough hewing and chisels fitted to handles ; * * * these 
last are used like a cooper’s adze, and remove the wood in small chips. 
The process of finishing is very slow. A white carpenter could smooth off the hull of a canoe with 
a plane, and do more in two hours than the Indian with his chisel can do in a week. The outside, 
when it is completed, serves as a guide for finishing the inside, the workman gauging the requisite 
thickness hy placing one hand on the outside and the other on the inside and passing them over the 
work. He is guided in modeling hy the eye, seldom if ever using a measure of any kind; and some 
are so expert in this that they make lines as true as the most skillful mechanic can. If the tree is not 
sufficiently thick to give the required width, they spring the top of the sides apart, in the middle of the 
canoes, hy steaming the wood. The inside is filled with water which is heated hy means of red-hot 
stones, and a slow fire is made on the outside hy rows of hark laid on the ground a short distance oft', 
hut near enough to warm the cedar without burning it. This renders the wood very flexible in a 
short time, so that the sides can he opened from 6 to 12 inches. 
The canoe is now straightened, and kept in form by sticks or stretchers similar to a boat’s thwarts. 
The ends of these stretchers are fastened with withes made from tapering cedar limbs, twisted and 
used instead of cords, and the water is then emptied out ; this process is not often employed, however, 
the log being usually sufficiently wide in the first instance. As the projections for the head 
and stern pieces cannot he cut from the log, they are carved from separate pieces and fastened on hy 
means of withes and wooden pegs. A very neat and peculiar scarf is used in joining these pieces 
to the body of the canoe, and the parts are fitted together in a simple and effectual manner. First 
the scarf is made on the canoe ; this is rubbed over with grease and charcoal ; next the piece to he 
fitted is hewn as nearly like the scarf as the eye can guide, and applied to the part which has the 
grease on it. It is then removed, and the inequalities being at once discovered and chipped off wfith 
the chisel, the process is repeated until the whole of the scarf or the piece to be fitted is uniformly 
marked with the blackened grease. The joints are hy this method perfectly matched, and so neat as 
to he water-tight without any .calking. 
The head and stern pieces being fastened on, the whole of the inside is then chipped over again, 
and the smaller and more indistinct the chisel marks are the better the workmanship is considered. 
Until very recently it was the custom to ornament all canoes, except the small ones, with rows of the 
pearly valve of a species of sea snail. These shells are procured in large quantities at Nittinat and 
Clyoquot, and formerly were in great demand as an article of traffic. They are inserted in the inside 
of the edge of the canoe hy driving them into holes bored to receive them. But at present they are 
not used much hy the Makahs, for the reason, I presume, that they are continually trading off their 
