. Bulletin - United States National Museum. Science. J'caU /n r,-^/ ^Top of // /a/^evn tVej/em Crer Canoe ^rr7gf/> oyera// /^'/O, oyer ^i/ntva/fj //'<? ". Figure 124 Western Cree 2}>2-Fathom Canoe, Winisk River District, northwest of James Bay. Built of either birch or spruce bark. Inside root stem piece, round gunwales, and much-bellied headboard are typical. panels were sewn with in-and-out stitches or back stitches, and the gores with the usual spiral. Gum- ming as a rule was done with clear spruce gum tem- pered by repeated meltings. The woodw'ork varied with the building sit
. Bulletin - United States National Museum. Science. J'caU /n r,-^/ ^Top of // /a/^evn tVej/em Crer Canoe ^rr7gf/> oyera// /^'/O, oyer ^i/ntva/fj //'<? ". Figure 124 Western Cree 2}>2-Fathom Canoe, Winisk River District, northwest of James Bay. Built of either birch or spruce bark. Inside root stem piece, round gunwales, and much-bellied headboard are typical. panels were sewn with in-and-out stitches or back stitches, and the gores with the usual spiral. Gum- ming as a rule was done with clear spruce gum tem- pered by repeated meltings. The woodw'ork varied with the building site; some builders could use much cedar, but spruce was most common and the thwarts were usually of birch. When spruce bark was used it was never employed in a single large sheet, since it w-ould have been impossible to mold it to the required shape. Hence the bark cover was pieced up, whether birch or spruce, as an aid in molding the form. Before the spruce bark was sewed and gummed, the edges of the pieces had to be thinned to make a neat joint. Furthermore, in the continuous lashing it was desirable to take two or three turns through one hole in the bark cover to avoid weakening the material with closely spaced holes. The western Cree paddles had parallel-sided blades with rounded tips; the handle sometimes had a ball- shaped top grip and sometimes it was pole-ended. The blade did not have a ridge on its face near the handle. Old Cree paddles were often decorated with red pigment bands, markings in the shape of crosses, squares in series, and dots on the blades; the top grip might also be painted. Many tribal groups in the western portion of the area have been mentioned—-Teton, Sioux, Assini- boine, Illinois, Huron, and many others—but no record of their canoe forms has survived and the assigning of any model to them is pure sp>eculation. The fur trade alone brought about a fieriod of tribal movement among the Indians long enough to erase many tribal distinctions in can
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Keywords: ., bookauthorun, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectscience
