. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. PRIMITIVE AMERICAN ARMOR. 629 The construction of the North Americau shield is given in detail by George Oatlin. The ingenious process of contracting and hardening the hide by fire was common. Sioux shield made of the skiu of the buffalo's iieek, hardened with glue extracted from the hoofs aud joints of the same animal. The pro- cess of "smoking the shield" is a verj' curious as well as important one, in their estimation. For this
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. PRIMITIVE AMERICAN ARMOR. 629 The construction of the North Americau shield is given in detail by George Oatlin. The ingenious process of contracting and hardening the hide by fire was common. Sioux shield made of the skiu of the buffalo's iieek, hardened with glue extracted from the hoofs aud joints of the same animal. The pro- cess of "smoking the shield" is a verj' curious as well as important one, in their estimation. For this purpose a young man about to con- struct for him a shield digs a hole of 2 feet in depth in the ground, and as large in diameter as he designs to make his shield. In this he builds a fire, and over it, a few inches higher than the ground, be stretches the rawhide horizontally over the fire, with little pegs driven through holes made near the edges of the skin. The skin is at first twice as large as the size of the required shield; but having got his particular and best friends (who are invited on this occasion) into a ring to dance and sing about it and solicit the Great Sph'it to instill into it the power to j)rotect him harmless against his enemies, he spreads over it the glue which is rubbed aud dried in, as the skin is heated; and a second busily drives other and other pegs, inside of those in the ground, as they are gradually giving away and being pulled up by the contrac- tion of the skin. By this curious process, which is most dexterously done, the skin is kept tight whilst it contracts to one-half of its size, taking up the glue and increasing in thickness until it is rendered as thick and hard as required (and his friends have pleaded long enough to make it arrow, and almost ball, proof), when the dance ceases and the fire is put out. When it is cooled and cut into the shape that he desires, it is often painted with his medicine or totem upon it, the figure of an eagl
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithsonianinstitutio, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840
