Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements / Thirteenth Annual Report of the Beaurau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 263-288

by James Owen Dorsey

Boats.

When they wished to cross streams they made hide boats, or mandéha. These were manufactured from dried buffalo hides, which were sewed together with sinew, and so tightly that no water could penetrate the seams. Ten branches of red willow were placed within, the ends being bent upward and fastened by withes to two other saplings, which extended the whole length of the boat at the inside of the gunwale. The ten pieces were the ʇíci-íki[p]ádaⁿ. The rudder or steering oar (íȼisaⁿ′ȼĕ) was fashioned like the oars (mandúȼugáhi), with the blade flat and of the breadth of two hands. The rowers (uȼúgahi aká) sat near the bow, and the steersman (ȼisaⁿ′ȼa aká) took his seat at the stern.