66

992

whorl.1 Cooking and eating utensils, though simple, were made of the best available material-chiefly bark, wood and earthenware-and fulfilled very satisfactorily the purposes for which they were intended. Our cooking and eating utensils," says Mary Jemison, "consisted of a hominy block and pestle, a small kettle, a knife or two, and a few vessels of bark or wood." The mortar and pestle were among the most important articles of household furniture. The former, though sometimes made of stone, was usually a tree trunk hollowed out by fire, while the pestle was a piece of hard wood, larger at both ends and smaller in the middle. The wooden mortar was used to grind corn and dried meats, while the stone mortar served to crush nut shells, materials for pottery, and other hard substances.3 Next to the mortar in importance came the earthenware vessels in which the cooking was done. These pots, made of clay mixed with pounded stone and shell, were spherical at the bottom, and usually constricted below the top, having an expanded rim. There were two sorts, common clay colored pottery, and the more valuable black pottery, which was of fine enough texture to admit of a polish, and firm enough to look like stone. According to Sagard, the material, with a little grease added to it, was worked and kneaded by the hands of the women into a perfectly rounded ball. With the fist, a hole was then made in the material and constantly enlarged by turning and slapping the outside of the mass with a little wooden paddle, until the vessel had assumed the desired shape. It was then dried in the sun and baked in a fire made of bark. "These vessels," Sagard says, "are so strong that they do not break when on the fire without water in them, as ours do, but at the same time they cannot stand dampness and cold water long without getting frail and breaking at the least knock that one gives them. Otherwise they are very durable." The early writers mention only the method of making pottery described by

34.

1Mason, "Origin of Inventions," p. 88.

2 "Life of Mary Jemison," p. 72.

3 La Potherie, III, 19; Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 18, p. 32,

'Sagard, pp. 275-276.

Sagard. Mr. Beauchamp thinks that vessels were sometimes formed on a kind of foundation, though just what it might have been, he does not know. In general the hand seems to have been employed without much other aid. The method of cooking, whether by placing the vessel on the fire, or by putting red hot stones in it until the contents were brought to the boiling point, is also a matter of doubt. From Sagard's account, the former method seems probable. These pots were also used for other purposes than the primary one of cooking. They were probably employed as water-pails or for holding a temporary supply of grain. For the reception of dry substances, however, the bark dish, tray, or barrel was most convenient. The bark tray was used in a number of ways, but chiefly in the preparation of corn-bread. It was made of a strip of elm-bark, rounded or gathered up at the ends, so as to form a shallow concavity. Around the rim, splints of hickory were stitched to hold the article in shape. These trays were of all sizes, holding from one to ten pecks.1 The bark tub for holding maple sap and for other similar uses was made in somewhat the same way.2 The bark barrel in which surplus stores were kept was also made of the inner rind of the red-elm bark, the grain running around the barrel. It was stitched firmly up the side, and had the bottom and lid secured in the same manner.3 It was very durable, and would last for years, if properly cared for. Other articles of wood or similar substances were the sieves used for sifting meal. These were made of twigs, splints, or corn-husks. Splint baskets of all sizes were also manufactured. The articles used in eating were also mostly of wood or bark. Bowls, pitchers and other vessels of wood, plates of wood or of bark, spoons of wood and occasionally of bone or of horn were common in every Iroquois household. To sum up, the apparatus for kindling the fire, the stone and

1 Morgan, "League,” p. 367.

2 Ibid., pp. 369–370.

Ibid., p. 366.

Ibid., pp. 382-383; Lafitau, II, 86-87.

"Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 50, pp. 315 sq.; Morgan, "League," p. 383; Lafitau, II, 87; Jes. Rel., XXXVIII, 247.

wooden mortars, a few earthenware vessels, bark and wooden trays, boxes, plates, and dishes, besides the ever necessary knife, were the chief instruments used by the Iroquois in the preparation of their food.

The making of clothing and coverings called for very little inventive genius on the part of the Iroquois. Their small textile industry they carried on almost entirely without the aid of tools. Lafitau and Morgan describe for us the process of manufacturing thread.1 After the outer surface of the bark had been removed, the soft inner portion, cut into narrow strips with the finger-nail, was boiled in ashes and water. When dry, it was easily separated into small filaments several feet in length. These were then rolled with the palm of the hand on the bare knee into threads or cords of any thickness and length. Neither spinning wheels nor distaffs were used to work up the thread into textiles. Schoolcraft says that the reed mats and such fabrics were probably made with the help of a sort of bone shuttle, a specimen of which has been found near Fort Niagara, N. Y. This implement, intended to introduce the woof of the fabric, Schoolcraft describes as made "of finely polished bone. It is ten and a half inches in length, perfectly round, about one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and has a double-barbed head a quarter of an inch in length. Between the barbs is a mouth or slit which would enable it to carry the thread across and through the warp.' Another implement, employed in making burden straps and such articles, was a sort of hickory needle with which the bark thread was knit.3 Aside from these simple tools, the Iroquois textile industry, limited as it was by the lack of any raw material like wool or cotton, did not necessitate the use of special implements. The manufacture of skin articles, though comparatively extensive, was also of a nature not likely to lead to many inventions. the first place a wooden or stone scraper was necessary.* Gen

1Lafitau, II, 159–160; Morgan, “League,” pp. 364–366.

" 2

In

Cf. Sagard, pp. 250-251; Eth. Rep., 1891-'2, p. 23; La Potherie, III, 34. 2 Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," I, 88.

Morgan, "League," p. 365.

Morgan, “League,” pp. 361–362.

66

erally, the Iroquois employed a wooden blade, avoiding here as elsewhere the unnecessary use of stone. With this implement the hair and grain of the fresh deer skin was removed. This skin was then cured by soaking in a solution of deer brains and subsequent exposure to a smoky fire, until the pores were closed and the skin soft and pliable. Bone, horn, or wooden awls and needles, with thread of vegetable fibre or sinew, were then employed to sew the skin into the desired shape.2 "A small bone near the ankle joint of the deer," says Mr. Morgan, "has furnished the moccason needle of time immemorial, and the sinews the thread."3 Bone needles were generally flat and thin, often rounded at the ends, and having two holes near the centre. They were in fact, more like bodkins than real needles. Most of the finer work was probably done with the bone or horn awl, used as is a modern shoemaker's instrument. A simple shuttle, and a wooden knitting needle, scrapers, and wooden and bone awls and bodkins, then, were the only inventions known or needed by the Iroquois for use in their textile industry and in the manufacture of skin articles.

Among secondary production-goods should also be mentioned a third class of inventions arising out of the necessity of transporting products of all sorts frequently from one spot to another. Fishing and hunting were generally carried on at a distance from the village, and the surplus product had to be carried home in order to be utilized; firewood and building materials often had to be brought from a spot a mile or so from the village; agricultural products were sometimes to be transported from fields some distance away from the village; and a general migration was occasionally necessary: hence came the invention of several articles to facilitate transportation by land and by water.

In the warm season, goods going by land routes had to be carried for the most part on the back of the individual himself. The task was facilitated, however, by the use of bretelles and

1 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 64.

2 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 50, pp. 312-313. Lafitau, II, 160. Morgan, "League," pp. 360–361.

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 50, p. 311.

burden straps.1

The former, according to Lafitau, were a sort of wooden frame very convenient to lift a heavy load and carry it easily." If this were not at hand, the goods were made into a package and carried on the shoulders by means of a burden strap passed around the forehead or chest. The strap, woven with warp and woof of filaments of bark, was about fifteen feet long and three or four inches wide in the centre. In winter, when snow lay on the ground, the problem of land transportation was more easily solved. Under these circumstances the hunter himself travelled easily and swiftly with the aid of his snow-shoes, and at the same time dragged a heavily loaded sled. The snowshoe, without which the hunter of the Eastern Forest would have been quite helpless in winter, and with which he could travel more easily than in summer, was a hickory framework three feet long and sixteen inches wide, bent round with an arching front and brought to a point at the heel. Cross pieces held it in shape. Within the area was a woven net-work of deer strings, with interstices about an inch square. To this the ball of the foot was lashed with thongs. The heel, however, was left free to work up and down, while through an opening left for them the toes could descend below the surface of the shoe as the heel was raised in the act of walking. The sled, according to Lafitau,3" is made of two small and very slender boards, which both together are not more than a foot broad, and are six or seven feet long. The boards are bent upwards and turned backwards in front to a distance of about six inches, in order to break and turn aside the snow which, piling up, would prevent the sled from running easily. Two sticks, a little raised, run along the whole length of the sled on both sides, and are fastened to it at regular intervals. To them are attached the ropes which hold the load on the sled. A savage, with his collar passed over his chest, and wrapped in his blanket, draws his heavily laden sled after him without much difficulty." Bretelles and burden-straps, snow-shoes and sleds, were

1,4

2

1Lafitau, II, 219; Morgan, "League," pp. 365-366.

2 Morgan, “League,” pp. 376–377.

Lafitau, II, 216–217.

'Lafitau, II, 220.