Chapter 16
Tools and Transportation
In This Chapter
Going on the prowl
Toting
Getting around
Animals provided food, clothing, tools, weapons, pouches, and oils, and people worked to ensure that the animals were accorded the respect that they deserved for providing all of this. In addition to using most parts of an animal out of respect for that creature, efficiency and frugality dictated people’s behavior.
Indians made use of everything from the animal’s fur, skin, teeth, and nails, to its bladder (for carrying), urine (for tanning), and, in the case of sharks on the eastern coast, its liver (for oil). The Calusa, for example, along Florida’s southwest coast, went after great white sharks from which they would obtain more than 75 gallons of liver oil, which was used as a dietary supplement for its nutrients.
This chapter explores the ins and outs of all the uses the Indians made of animals.
Hunting and Trapping
Animals were both hunted and trapped. Also, the seas and lakes were harvested for fish, which was mainly used for food.
Bow and arrow
The ubiquitous bow and arrow has long been associated with Indians, although the weapon had a long history in Europe and Asia before it appeared in the area now known as Iowa around A.D. 500.
American Indians used the bow in battle (see Chapter 11) but its more common use was in hunting.
Bows were made from a flexible wood that was cut thin and then bent into a curved shape and held taut at both ends by a string made of sinew or a fiber. The arrows (see Figures 16-1, 16-2 and 16-3) were made of wood and feathers. (One valued type of wood, called Bois d’Arc, was traded from the Southeast throughout the country.)
A keen-eyed Indian archer could often down an animal with one shot. It was also said that the finest archers could get off six bulls-eye shots in a single minute.
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Figure 16-1: A bow and arrow. |
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Figure 16-2: Hunting arrow. |
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Traps
Traps were used to snare all manner of animals, birds, and fish, and allowed Native hunters to set many in a range of locations and return to them later.
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Figure 16-3: Arrowhead. |
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Pit trap
Large animals were commonly caught with a pit trap. A pit would be dug and covered with camouflage and then animals would be steered or chased toward the pit. Once they fell through the reed or branches covering, they’d be killed and removed.
In some instances, the hunter would actually hide in the pit (obviously the pit would have to be wide enough and deep enough), and then bait would be placed on top of the pit’s covering and secured so that it could not be removed. When a bird landed on the trap, or a small animal wandered onto it, attracted by the bait, the hunter would burst up out of the hole and kill his prey.
Deadfall trap
Another type of trap is the deadfall trap, so named because something heavy falls on the prey, and said prey is then dead!
Deadfall traps commonly attracted
Ermine
Mink
Otter
Wolves
Weasels
This type of trap can be made with nothing but sticks, cordage (plants can be drawn and wound into cords if actual twine or string isn’t available), and something heavy, like a large rock or a heavy piece of log. The heavy object is propped up so that when the bait is taken, the stick holding it up falls away and the object drops onto the animal. If the object is large and heavy enough, and the animal of a smallish size, the blow would usually kill it. If not, it would at least trap it beneath the object so the hunter could retrieve it and deal it the killing blow.
There are some terrific QuickTime movies of deadfall traps being constructed and tripped at the Wildwood Survival Web site on their page http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/traps/paiute/paiute01.html.
Fish weir trap
A weir is an enclosure made of netting or stakes that is set in a stream and used to catch fish. Metal, hinged, spring-loaded traps came later, in the early 1800s. Beaver traps were carried by members of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Snare trap
An animal caught in a snare trap — rabbit, fox, small cats — would strangle to death from the rawhide loop they inadvertently stuck their head through.
Some snares would choke the trapped animal on the ground. Others used the bent wood that would release when tripped and suspend the animal off the ground, literally hanging them until they died. Since a snare trap is constructed of natural materials, it would essentially be invisible to the prey, blending in beautifully with its surroundings, and the animal would be trapped before it realized it had “stepped on a landmine,” so to speak (and to shamelessly mix metaphors!).
Carrying the Load
Bowls and baskets were utilitarian and used for:
Harvesting: Corn, berries, fruits, shells, stones, and other items of value to Indians were all carried in baskets.
Cooking: Pottery bowls were placed in a fire pit or over a ground fire. Food could also be cooked in baskets by placing heated rocks into a tightly woven basket.
Fishing: Clams and fish were collected and carried in open-weave baskets.
Storage: Grains and other foodstuffs were stored in both pots and baskets.
Burial: Sometimes decorated pots were placed in graves with the deceased. For some tribes, a hole would be put in the pot to symbolically kill it.
Baskets
Baskets (see Figure 16-4) were commonly made from plants and reeds that were abundant in the region, and the strands would be wrapped around support rods made from branches cut and trimmed to size.
Native tribes by the coasts wove some of their baskets loosely and widely so there were holes through which water could drain. Fish and clams would be caught and harvested and tossed in the basket, usually with lots of water, which would then drain out. These types of open-weave baskets were a clever and simple solution that:
Drained excess water
Reduced weight
Allowed air to circulate through the harvested seafood
Smart.
Baskets were also often decorated with symbols and designs. Each tribe had their own styles of baskets and design patterns (see Figure 16-5). Because of their fragility, very few baskets have survived the passage of time, although pieces of woven mats and basket fragments have been found in rock shelters in the Lower Pecos region of Texas from up to 2,000 years ago. Plant fibers rot, thus their lack of durability and longevity.
The Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture in Seattle, Washington, has a terrific display of burden baskets and their Web site offers an amazing online exhibit of their holdings. Check it out at www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/baskets/index.html.
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Figure 16-4: Basket. |
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Figure 16-5: Basket pattern. |
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Bowls
Native American bowls were sometimes made of wood, but were mostly pottery. Bowls were also made from gourds that would be dried out and allowed to harden.
The story goes that Native Americans discovered the craft of pottery by accident. They purportedly covered their woven baskets with clay mud to protect them, and perhaps so they could be placed over a fire for cooking purposes. To their surprise, the mud hardened! It was probably one of those sudden light bulb moments: Some long-gone Native American man or woman was watching their fire and suddenly discovered that the mud was now a hard shell. A solid, hard-shelled container . . . how nifty! Or something akin to that probably leaped into their mind.
All Native American pottery was made by hand, since the potter’s wheel was a European invention. Indigenous people (in Central America) had the wheel; for some reason, it was never adapted for use in throwing pottery.
All the Native American cultures — North, South and Southeast, Central, and Southwest — made their own bowls. As early as 2500 B.C., the Archaic Indians along the west coast of North America were making bowls (and baskets).
Other containers
Deerskin pouches and bags were also common among Native Americans. Many Europeans noticed that the Indians always had some sort of bag or pouch around their waist or slung over their shoulder.
These carry-alls were made from deerskin, animal bladders, and woven fabrics and were used to carry
Tobacco
Medicinal herbs and other medicines
Food
Good luck totems
Ammunition
Sewing supplies
Flints for starting fires
Cornmeal for mixing with water and making a quick meal
Small tools
Also, Native Americans made sheaths and scabbards from deerskin and other materials and hides for carrying daggers and knives.
Puzzle pouches
The Iroquois, Mohawk, and other woodland Indians made a special type of leather pouch that was known as a “puzzle pouch.” Why? Because it was a puzzle as to how to open it!
The pouch was made with interwoven strips of leather in such a way that if you didn’t know how to open it, you’d have to figure it out or have someone show you.
The pouches were also apparently used in a game in which some object was placed in the pouch and then the pouch was passed around and players had to guess what the object was.
NativeTech.org has a page on their site where you can learn how to make an actual Native American puzzle pouch: www.nativetech.org/clothing/pouch/puzzlepouch/puzzlepouchinstructions.html.
Puzzle pouches seemed to have been made solely for fun. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Travel Plans
How do you get around when you have no wheeled transports and you haven’t yet been introduced to the horse? Or the stagecoach? Or the Chevy Tahoe?
You walk, or you use the waterways. And that’s precisely how Native Americans traveled throughout the North American continent in the 16th and 17th centuries.
This section looks at some of the more common means of transportation by both Native Americans in the lower North American continent and the Inuit tribes up north.
Dugout canoe
If you “dig out” a log, said log is now “dug out,” right? And that’s exactly how dugout canoes were made. First, a fire would be set down the middle of the log to efficiently get rid of the central portion. Next, using hand tools, the log was chopped at and gouged out until it was deep and open enough to comfortably fit one or more people.
The natural buoyancy of the wood made this simple vessel one of the most useful and ubiquitous forms of transportation for Native Americans. Wooden paddles were likewise carved from tree branches and small logs and used for steering.
Bark canoe
Unlike the dugout canoe (see Figure 16-6), a bark canoe was built in steps and comprised of two separate parts: a wooden frame and a bark outer shell. The bark was almost always birch, and it would be removed in a large single sheet and then stretched out and shaped to fit the wooden frame.
The appeal of these types of canoes is that they were very light and, thus, very portable. They could also be easily manned by a single paddler, and large quantities of goods could be easily transported in its large hull. The downside was that they were more fragile than the solid, one-piece dugout canoes. But they were also quickly repairable. The thin bark hull was susceptible to damage from rocks and other natural impediments, but with some spruce gum and a small piece of spare spruce bark (carried along for exactly this eventuality), it could be easily patched.
Kayak and umiak
The Inuits in the Arctic regions invented the kayak and the umiak more than 4,000 years ago. The difference between the two is that the kayak is a covered boat and the umiak is an open boat.
The original kayak was made of wood and then covered with seal or walrus hide, including the top deck. There is a hole left in the center of the kayak for the paddler. The design of the boat meant that the pilot would remain relatively warm and dry while on the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest. The kayak was propelled by a two-headed paddle so the pilot did not have to switch hands.
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The umiak, on the other hand, was open, like a canoe, but instead of a wooden or bark hull, it was likewise covered in walrus or seal hide. Umiaks held several people (also unlike the kayak, which was limited to one, sometimes two people) and could transport supplies and goods easily.
Umiaks were also used for fishing and whale-hunting expeditions.
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Figure 16-6: A canoe. |
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Bull boat
Now, this was a weird one.
Picture a floating bowl. Got it?
That’s a bull boat.
Bull boats were made from birch wood that was shaped into a round shape and then covered with buffalo skin which had not been “de-haired.” We can only imagine the difficulty to navigate these vessels, yet they were common among several tribes, especially the Mandan and Hidatsa.
Snowshoes
All snowshoes don’t look like tennis rackets strapped to a person’s feet.
Okay, I’ll admit it, though: That is the image most of us are familiar with, and movies and television have perpetuated this version of the snowshoe.
The truth, however, is that each tribe designed snowshoes to accommodate the snowfall in their region, and there were many styles created. Many were modeled on animals’ feet and paws; some were designed for specific types of snow: deep and wet; fluffy; in forests; on plains, and so forth.
Apparently, no one knows when the snowshoe was invented, but it’s not a surprise it was. The earliest snowshoes were being used in central Asia between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago, and it is believed that the Indians who migrated across the Bering Strait (see Chapter 2) brought them with them.
Here’s a rundown of the types of snowshoes a few different “cold weather” tribes used:
Huron: Paddle-shaped
Ojibwa: Pointed tip
Athabaskans: Upturned toe
Attikamek: Square toe, tight finely woven midsection
The snowshoe was one of those inventions that illustrates and truly validates the adage about necessity being the mother of invention. In order to hunt buffalo and other animals and survive, Native peoples needed to be able to walk across deep snow without sinking into it. Clever application of wood-working skills, along with sophisticated weaving, plus a soupcon of attentive observation of how animals walked across snow led to one of the most useful innovations of all time. (Until the snow blower came along, of course.)
Today’s snowshoes are hi-tech and boast modern designs. They come in handy if you happen to live in an area that gets heavy snow. If you live year-round in Phoenix, though, then your tennis racket is probably the closest thing to a snowshoe you’ll ever lay your hands on. (And we hope you don’t mind that we just perpetuated a snowshoe stereotype!)
Plank canoe
The Chumash people were from an area that is now southern California. They were the inventors and sailors of the plank canoe, a vessel known as a tomol in their native language.
These boats were between 10 and 30 feet in length and were commonly made from redwood and pine. The tomol may have been one of the only Native water vessels that was assembled in part using glue.
This is how a typical tomol was built:
The length of the boat was decided on and a one-piece flat floor was made.
The depth of the boat was decided on and thin wood planks were stacked up on each side of the boat, edge to edge until the desired height was reached and these planks were then glued into place using a cement made from pine tar and asphalt called asphaltum, also known as yop.
Once the glue dried (and this is the clever part), small holes were drilled in the planks adjacent to each other and then twine made from plant fibers was threaded through the holes and tied tightly to add strength to the bond of the cement.
Once all the planks were tied together securely, the Chumash then painted the seams with more asphaltum to make the sides of the boat as watertight as possible. They also plugged the holes with the sticky substance. This didn’t always work to keep water out of the boat, though, and one crew member was always assigned to continuously bail out the inevitable water seepage while they were underway.
Today, there are tomol boats in museums that were built from original Chumash plans. However, no completely intact tomol boat has ever been found by archaeologists and historians.
Battles on snowshoes
During the French and Indian War, two battles were fought that are now known as the First Battle on Snowshoes (January 21, 1757) and the Second Battle on Snowshoes (March 13, 1758).
The battles occurred in upstate New York and pitted the French and their Indian allies against the British.
The battles bear this name because, yes, the British were wearing snowshoes for both conflicts.
The wounded land
One of the more notable painters of the American West was Edgar Samuel Paxson (1852–1929), most known for what many consider his masterpiece work, Custer’s Last Stand.
In 1877, Paxson traveled the Lolo Trail—a 200-mile-long trail that stretches from Lolo, Montana, to Weippe Prairie, Idaho, and which was traveled by the Lewis and Clark Expedition — for the first time, and in his journal he noted that the ground had deep, long gouges in it.
These wounds in the land were from the dragging poles of the many Indian travois that had traversed the trail.
Travois
A travois was made of two long sticks that were crisscrossed so that the front end could be draped across the animal’s shoulder and not fall off.
Dogs and horses were the animals most commonly used for pulling a travois, but they were designed so that a person could drag one (although if it was piled with heavy load, the odds are the human dray horse probably wouldn’t be able to drag it very far without resting).
The rear of the travois was dragged across the ground. There was a skin or some type of woven mesh covering stretched between the two rear ends of the sticks for carrying goods or people.
The travois was used widely in the fur trade in Canada. The benefit of its flat-bottomed design was that it could be dragged with very little resistance over even the rockiest or roughest terrain.
Initially, these wooden sleds were pulled by dogs (and, as mentioned, [unlucky] people). After the horse was introduced into Native American culture in the 16th century, it replaced dogs when the sleds were built larger and became heavier to pull.
Sled
A sled has two parallel runners across which slats of wood or leather are placed. It is pulled across snow or ice by people or dogs. (And it was often Native women who pulled the sleds.)
The Sioux used buffalo ribs for the cross-slats; most of time they were made from stripped and cut-to-length wood.
Toboggan
The toboggan, which is technically a sled, too, does not have runners or skis. It, instead, has a flat bottom with a curved front and it is pulled by a rope.
Since flat, wide boards were unknown to the Eastern Indians, toboggans were built from strips of bark, or thin pieces of wood strapped together.
“Get the sled”
Sleds weren’t only used by Native Americans; settlers made good use of them as well.
The acclaimed HBO western, Deadwood, which takes place in Deadwood, South Dakota, during the gold rush of the 1870s, was about miners who flocked onto Indian territory to make their fortune.
Because the Deadwood camp was illegal and not part of the United States, there were no laws, and a death a day from violence (or accident) was common Saloon owner Al Swearengen, the camp’s de facto leader, owned a large wooden sled with runners. The thoroughfare of the town was either sandy dirt or mud, depending on the weather, and the sled’s runners made it easy to pull it through town regardless of the condition of the ground.
Whenever a body needed to be transported to Doc Cochran’s (or to Wu’s pigsty), Al’s employees would hear him shout down from his office, “Get the sled.”