The Chief and I have been dressing the skin of his first buck which will make fine moccasins later on, although he wants to get a moose, too, for its hide will stand more wear. His method of making buckskin is the one the Indians have used for generations and it is fairly simple.
A lot of hard work goes into making a good skin, for the only skin worth having is one that is soft and will stay soft even after it has been soaked time after time. To begin with, the Chief mixes about two quarts of wood ashes in half a wash tub of warm water and puts the skin in to soak so that the hair can be scraped off easily. This can usually be done after the hide has soaked two or three days.
To scrape off the hair, hang the skin over a log set up at an angle to make it easy to work on, and scrape with an iron tool with the edge ground flat. The one the Chief uses is made of a piece of bucksaw blade set in a slotted handle, and it works fine. An old flat file makes a good tool.
When all the hair has been removed and the top layer of skin cleaned off, turn the hide over and start what is called “fleshing” it, which is the job of scraping off every trace of flesh and fat that was left on the hide when it was pulled off the animal. This is hard work and you can save yourself many a backache if you have your fleshing log at the right height so that you can put your full weight on the scraping tool as you push it down and away from you.
When all the hair is off and the skin has been thoroughly fleshed it ought to be rinsed in clear warm water and then wrung out. It is a pretty awkward job to wring out a wet deerskin so the Chief and I rigged up a crude sort of wringer made of two short lengths of spruce logs with a handle on one, and set in a frame. It does a pretty good job too.
When you have all the water out of the hide the job of tanning begins. This is something that ought to be prepared for in advance. The Chief saves the brains of the deer, dries them very slowly in a pan at the back of his stove so they won’t cook, and when they are dry he puts them in an old sugar bag and boils them slowly until they are soft. When the boiled brains have cooled off so that he can stand to put his hand in the mixture, he pours them in the wash tub and adds just enough water so that the hide can be thoroughly soaked in the mixture where it must stay until the skin is just as soft as an old glove. In place of brains you can use common brown kitchen soap which is melted up until you can make a rich solution. Homemade soap, the kind made with lye in it, is even better, but the Chief never uses anything but brains.
While the skin is soaking it should be thoroughly worked every once in a while to help soften it, and after it has been soaking for a few hours take it out and pull it in every direction with all your strength to make the fibers pliable. This process of pulling and working dries the hide, and if it is then still stiff put it back to soak and repeat the process.
When the skin is properly done you should be able to squeeze water through it. The real secret of making good buckskin is to work it by kneading and stretching it until it is thoroughly softened. There is no easy way and it is safe to say that you can hardly work a skin too much.
The final drying should be done by squeezing all moisture out in the wringer and then working and pulling the hide until it is dry and smooth. The final step which keeps the skin soft even after it has been wet through use is smoking for several days in the same kind of smoke that you use for curing meat. It is important that as little heat as possible reaches the skin. To get an even smoke the skin should be turned over from time to time and the job is done when the hide has taken on a beautiful soft yellow tone. When the hide is used for moccasins some folks give one side a dressing of neat’s-foot oil.
On my cabin floor is a fine bearskin rug which the Chief, Hank, and I tanned. Where you want to keep the fur you don’t soak the skin in water and ashes, but after fleshing it stretch the hide by lacing it on a frame in a place where it will be sheltered from rain. Then you paint on a coat of the brains mixture made just as you do for buckskin. Several coats should be applied at intervals, between which the skin should be pulled and worked thoroughly to soften it. I remember we laid it out where the pine needles were thick, fur side down, and beat it with saplings to help soften the fibers. After it was thoroughly softened we gave the fur a good washing in the lake, stretched and worked it until it was dry, and then smoked it for several days. The hide is just as soft now as the day we finished the job, and mighty comforting to the feet on a cold morning, not to mention being downright good looking.
While we were working on the deerskin we got talking about the way we used pyrite to start our campfire and other methods, such as whirling a stick with a bow which is difficult, and using a magnifying glass, a fine method when the sun is out. But one of the best fire makers I have ever seen is the fire piston which they say was invented ages ago and is still used by primitive natives on small islands in the faraway Pacific. They make their fire pistons of wood, but try as I could, I never made one of wood that would work, although I’m going to try it again one of these days. But I did make one of a short piece of quarter-inch brass pipe that does a good job.
The fire piston works on the principle that air gets very hot when compressed under high pressure. Anybody who has ever worked a bicycle pump will recall how hot it gets when you pump it for a while. Well, the fire piston works that way only you take just one stroke to compress the air which may reach a temperature of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
The secret of making a piston is to have a small, smooth bore cylinder, one end of which is closed, and a plunger with packing on the end that allows no air to get by it when it is thrust quickly into the cylinder. The end of the plunger is hollowed out to a depth of not more than one-eighth of an inch and in this little hole, which should be wider at the bottom than at the top, put a little wad of tinder. I have used charred cotton rag and also finely shredded cedar bark, but it has to be thoroughly dry.
To start your tinder glowing you pull the piston almost out of the tube, put the end against something solid like a tree or a wall and give a quick thrust. The speed and force of the thrust has a lot to do with getting your tinder lighted, and in case you try it I want to tell you that it takes patience and practice, and don’t be disappointed if the first piston doesn’t work. I should also mention that the plunger must reach to within three-sixteenths of an inch of the bottom so that you get high compression.
I made my plunger out of a nail cut off square with a groove one-fourth of an inch wide filed as close to the bottom end as I could make it for winding on thread for packing. I also took care to sandpaper the nail very smooth so that it would travel freely and on top of that the packing should be greased. I found that a little candle wax mixed with bacon fat worked well. The natives of the Pacific have a belief that a fire piston will work only if it is greased with dog fat, but I love my dogs too well to go that far.
On the top end of the piston I fastened a wooden handle of a kind that you can grasp between your fingers and thrust hard with the palm of your hand. I have made several designs for wooden ones and sometime I am going to see what I can do. To my way of thinking the wood should be very hard so that after use you get a fine glassy finish in the bore.
In the long winter nights when we three get together we sometimes make miniature models of cabins and the like, using flat weathered rocks or a weathered slab of silvery dry-ki.
Hank made a model of his cabin and even put in little trees made of dry green moss, the kind you find growing in thick woods away from the water. This moss grows in the natural form of beautiful little trees and is just right for our purpose. The Chief whittles out beautiful models of canoes and also makes some of birch bark. One of his models showed an Indian tepee set up on thirteen poles as the Indians used to do, each pole representing one of the moons of the year. He set it on a flat rock that looked just like a little island. There was a canoe on the shore and a little fleshing beam, a place for a fire, and a hunting shed on a little staging just as it would be stored during the summer. He has an idea that he will make a winter
scene sometime by putting a thin coat of glue on a rock and covering it with salt to look like snow. And of course you could use cotton batting.
As for myself, I once made a miniature logging camp complete with hovels, bunkhouses and cookhouse, logging sleds loaded with little logs held together by chains, and even tiny peaveys, as well as a bateau six inches long. But that wasn’t all. I finished it up by carving two horses to go with one of the sleds and a teamster two inches high standing alongside. It was mighty good looking if I do say so.
Gray Skies and Cold Rains
THE THIN ice that makes in the coves now is waiting its chance to creep out some quiet cold night when the lake is asleep, for this is Kuskatinayoui, the Ice Moon. High winds will drive it back for a while, but after a few days of steady cold as we near December it will bind the lake from shore to shore and hold it fast until spring. This is a month of many gray days when heavy clouds hurry across the sky. The Chief says the color and rolling motion of them make him think of the great caribou herds he saw years ago on their winter migration.
If you have done what you ought to do to be ready for winter, this is a month of contentment. When the late rains come, rains that often freeze as they fall, you can stay indoors with the fire going strong and leave the woods to the storms. But it is not all wind and rain in November, for on many nights the woods are so quiet and cold you can hear the thunder of the Manitoupeepagee rapids as if they were close by. Chief Tibeash is fond of the river and tells stories of the men of the fur brigades sitting by their campfires many years ago listening to the “voices of the rapids.” In the ever-changing sounds of falling water you can hear, if you want to, the pealing of church bells and deep-throated organ music, the songs of the north country, the voices of men and the laughter of children. You can hear the roar of the north winds and the whisper of a summer night breeze in the pine tops. Sometimes when the wind changes the sound fades and the music of fiddles will come clear and sweet. And I have heard the wild booming of Indian drums echoing in the hills.
It is on these still nights that you also hear the chorus of the big timber wolves back on the ridges. They are beginning to run now that it is getting colder and their hunger grows.
I can hardly describe the contentment that comes to me in November. Maybe it is a feeling of security, which is what every one of us is looking for. The way I look at it, security and happiness are one and the same thing. On a stormy night when the trees thrash in the high winds that claw at the eaves, I sit listening to the murmuring of the fire in the big stove, at peace with myself and the world. Give me food to keep me strong, wood to keep me warm, good friends to talk to me, fine books to read, and I have all I need. I know men who think that’s not enough.
Late fall brings ice storms that make the going slow and dangerous and for a while after the ice forms and before the heavy snows come you need something to help you on the lake ice. We don’t have creepers up here, but we made some wooden soles the shape of our feet with lacing to hold them on and a heel plate to keep them from shifting, and shod them with spikes made of wood screws and even stove bolts. One kind that Hank made had sharp iron cleats screwed to the bottom and they worked well. For holding the lacing we used staples at first and later cut slots which were more secure. To be sure you don’t use creepers very often, but when you need them nothing else will do. I will have to get some caulks next time I go to the logging camp.
Once the snows come and winter settles in we will need our snowshoes so I have taken mine down from the wires hanging from the ridgepole. That is the only way to keep them away from the mice and the squirrels that love to chew the babiche. I have a pair of bear paws, a very handy type about three feet long and eighteen inches wide, which are fine for breaking trail for the dogs in old snow. For traveling in deep snow and heavy woods, especially if you are carrying a pack, the Indian hunting type, about a foot wide and from four to five feet long, is best. You cannot beat this kind of snowshoe if you can get a pair with the toes turned up, which saves a lot of tripping in heavy brush. For a fast trip in open country and on the frozen waterways give me a pair of runner’s snowshoes about ten inches wide and from six to seven feet long.
Once in a while when we are working in hilly country we tie on the bottom of our snowshoes a piece of moose hide with the hair running back. This helps to keep us from slipping backwards. The idea is much the same as using sealskin on skis.
I like a permanent toe strap on my snowshoes. It should be about three-quarters of an inch wide and should loop across the toe hole, the ends being woven into the mesh on either side. To my mind the toe strap gives you better control of the snowshoe and with a good hitch you can travel a long way without much adjusting. There are several good snowshoe hitches, but Hank’s drawing shows the one that most of us up here use. Our hitch can be made permanent so that you can slip your foot in and out of it very quickly and not have to make a new tie every time you put your shoes on. Another good idea is a snowshoe harness made like the toe of a boot with the end cut off. It has a lacing on top to adjust it to the foot, and loops to fasten it to the snowshoe.
Once in a while you see a pair of wooden snowshoes made when a fellow got caught out in the woods in a heavy storm without his regular snowshoes. They can be made by splitting a dead cedar or pine log into thin boards and rounding the ends to snowshoe form. Our snowshoes are woven with moose hide babiche, the best of which is made from caribou hide which stretches very little when it is wet, but the caribou are gone from here and moose hide serves very well.
Snowshoeing is strenuous work and unless there is a bitter cold wind you don’t need as much clothing as you might think. Many a time I have tied my mackinaw on my pack, leaving me free to swing along in my shirt, but when you stop you have to put on your coat at once, for you will be sweating, and a sudden chill is the half brother of pneumonia. That is one of the most important things to remember in the woods, summer or winter.
The Chief loves a little fun and one snowy night last winter when he started home he reversed his snowshoes unbeknownst to me and went on his way. When I looked out later on to size up the weather there were snowshoe tracks coming to my cabin but none leaving and that had me puzzled for a minute. To this day the Chief still laughs over his trick. They tell me that in the old days outlaws used it to throw followers off their trail.
One evening when sleet was picking at the windows the Chief, puffing thoughtfully at the black pipe he loves so much, began talking about old-time Indian games. The grownups had a lot of gambling games, he said, and the youngsters, as well as the older ones, also liked to play games of skill. He told me about the tops that he and his brothers used to spin on the ice. They were whittled out of pieces of pine or tamarack, about four inches long and two and a half inches wide and tapered to a point at one end. Sometimes a little bone point or nail was put in the end to make them spin longer. This kind of top was kept spinning by a whip made of a little stick with a piece of rawhide on the end. They would start the top spinning by twirling it with the fingers and then keep it going by whipping it as fast as they could. They also made tops out of acorns and nuts as well as bone, and sometimes stones, when they could find the right shape.
Other tribes had different kinds of tops. Some were made with a thin, pointed stick driven through the centers of a wooden disk about four inches wide and slightly less than an inch thick. The spindle running through the top was about seven inches long. Once his father came back from a hunting trip up north and brought an Eskimo top shaped something like an arrowhead. Some of the Indians made tops that looked pretty much like the ones I used to spin when I was a boy by winding the cord around the top and throwing it. I guess all boys are the same, be they white or red, for the Chief got to chuckling over the top games he used to play when he tried to split the other fellow’s top. I have played that game many a time myself.
The old shell game played at carnivals is nothing new, for the Indians had their own games of that kind, using little piece
s of wood, pebbles or bone, which they changed from one hand to another and let the others guess which hand held the right piece.
The Indians even had their own form of football, which was played with little chunks of wood two or three inches thick and maybe six inches long. There were many rules for playing the game, but one of the favorites was to choose up sides and then the piece of wood was buried a few inches in the soil on a playing ground with two stakes at each end just about like the goal posts on a football field. The players had to dig the piece of wood out of the earth with their toes, for they were not allowed to touch it with their hands, and they would then kick it along the ground, dodging the opposing players until they got it through the goal posts.
The Chief tells about Indians in other parts of the country who used a kind of football made of rawhide stuffed with hair and grass. There was also another game in which the Indians used a soft ball of hide or fabric with a short cord attached to it. To play this game a player would lie on his back and sling the ball backward over his head. The man who could throw it the farthest was the winner.
They also had a lot of fun with stilts made of the limbs of trees on which a short stub of a branch would be left for the footpiece. Sometimes they would wrap the stubs with fur and thongs to make them more comfortable for the feet.
Another great Indian game was played with darts, some of which were made from corncobs with sharp bones set in one end and feathers in the other. The target was often a ring of grass or branches bound together with thongs. The target was laid on the ground and the players tried to get the darts inside the ring. Other tribes made darts by binding a single feather to a sharp sliver of bone or horn.
Cache Lake Country Page 20