VEGETABLE PRODUCTS USED BY NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 169 
phyllum) is used for making paddles; hence, the Cowschans call it kammal- 
celp or paddle-wood. The vine maple (Acer circinatum , Pursh) in like 
manner, when it can be procured, is used for making bowls, and Pinus mon- 
ticola , for spoons. The yellow cypress ( Cupressus Nutkaensis , Lamb. = 
Thuiopsis borealis, Fisch.) is also among the Tsimpsheans used for that 
purpose, and for making boxes, the sides and bottoms of which are hollowed 
out of one piece. The roots of Abies Menziesii , Dougl., are used for making 
hats. I have seen a pack of cards ingeniously imitated on the barks of Pinus 
monticola and Thuja gigantea for gambling purposes. The gambling disks 
and polished sticks used by many tribes are generally made of Acer macro- 
phyllum and Cupressus Nutkaensis. Yew ( [Taxus bred folia, Nutt. = T. 
Lindleyana , Murr.) is often called in various languages “ fighting wood,” being 
used to make bows from. Much of this yew grows near Mount Shasta, in 
California, and among the Oregon Indians a bow of “ Shasta yew ” is as much 
prized as in Europe' used to be a “coat of Milan steel,” or “a Toledo blade.” 
The arrows are made of cedar and various species of reeds, though north, the 
former is almost universally used. They have, I may mention, no arrow poison, 
but I have known some of the California Indians get a rattlesnake ( Croialus 
lucifer, Baird), and irritate it until it had struck repeatedly into the liver of 
some animal, impregnating it with its virus; they would then dip their arrows 
into this poisoned mass. All w r ood is used for fuel, but principally Abies 
Douglasii, Lindl., because it is most common, the branches of which are, in 
common with other trees, put into a canoe when it is leaking to keep the loads, 
or the paddlers from the water. At their great winter feasts bark is often used 
as fuel, it affording a stronger heat. Pinus contorta, Dougl., from being full 
of resin, is used as a torch by the Indians in salmon spearing at night, and at 
their feasts and dances. The leaves of Philadelphus Gordonianus, L., and P. 
Pewisii, Pursh, are used by the natives as a substitute for soap. The amole 
(Clilorogalum pomeridianum, Ivunth), or “soap plant,” has a bulbous root, 
which, when rubbed, makes a lather like soap, and was much used for washing 
by the Indians and native Californians, prior to the American possession of the 
country. It is also used, among other things, for making mats for saddlecloths. 
In California the aborigines make hats and vessels from a grass known as the 
“wire grass,” and coarse mats of Scirpus lacustris, and other rushes. Bottles 
are, as I have mentioned in a former paper,* made of the bulbous stem of Ma~ 
crocystis pyrifera, Ag. The textile plants of the Indians are few, the bark of 
Thuja gigantea supplying the place of most fibrous plants. They can extract 
a fibre from the stem of TJrtica gracilis , Ait., the native nettle, and I saw a 
fishing-net made of it, which the owner, a Seshaaht Indian of Barclay Sound, 
Vancouver Island, valued at 4M00. Some of the Indians on the Columbia 
river used to make salmon-fishing nets of the twigs of Cornus sericea, L., and 
the more southern tribes still use the native flax ( Linum perenne , L.) to make 
nets, twine, and ropes. Near the Klamath Lakes I saw it growing in such abun¬ 
dance as to suggest the idea of a cultivated field, and only recently the following 
extract appeared in the San Francisco (California) ‘ Bulletin ’ on the subject of the 
native “ hemp,” which doubtless refers to this, or an allied plant:—“ A morning 
contemporary calls attention to the fact recently verified, that large quantities of 
native hemp grow in the valley of Humboldt river, in the State of Nevada, which 
is gathered by the Indians, who strip off the bark from the dried wood, and make 
from it very fine and strong nets. The fibre is said to be longer, finer, and 
stronger than common hemp; longer than flax, and more easily separated from 
the wood than either. It is said 1100 tons of the stripped fibre can be collected 
* “ Observations on the Medicinal and Economical Value of the Oulachan” etc.—Pharma¬ 
ceutical Journal, June 1868. 
