“You’ll not been Injun,” said Moise. “If any of those pieces he’ll fly out of pan, then you have to give up the pan to the next man. You’ll make a loss that tam. All tam Injun he’ll play those platter game in the house at night,” continued Moise. “Two, four man, she’ll sit on blanket an’ play many hour. His woman she’ll cook meat on the fire. Another man he’ll sit an’ poun’ the drum. You’ll see my drum, I s’pose.”
He now fished out from under his bed one of the singular Cree drums, a shallow, one-sided circle of bent wood covered with tightly stretched moose skin. He showed them how the Indian drummer held this, straining it tight with thongs stretched from finger to thumb, and making the music by drumming with the fingers of the other hand.
“Injun he’ll use those drum sometam to pass time,” said Moise. “Sometam he’ll use heem for pray. S’pose I’ll want ver’ much for get moose—I’ll play on heem an’ seeng. S’pose I want for get grizzly ver’ much—then I seeng ver’ hard for get grizzly. S’pose you’ll seeng an’ play, always you’ll get those game, sure.”
“I don’t see what we’d do without you, Moise,” said John, who was continually rummaging around in Moise’s ditty-bag. “For instance, what’s this funny-looking knife you have here?”
“That’s worth noticing,” said Alex. “You young gentlemen ought to get you one of those knives each before you leave the country. That’s what we call a crooked knife—you see, the end of the blade is turned up.”
“How do you use that sort of thing?” asked John, curiously.
“As any native Injun always uses a knife,” rejoined Alex. “You see how the handle is put on—well, an Injun never whittles away from him, but always pulls the knife toward him. You’ll see, too, that he never sharpens a blade on both sides, but puts all the bevel on one side—look at my big hunting-knife here—it’s only sharpened on one side, and the other is perfectly flat.”
“Well, what makes Indians do that way?” asked John, wonderingly.
“I don’t know,” said Alex, “except that they always have done so. You see, they use files rather than whetstones to sharpen their tools. Maybe they find it easier to put on an edge in this way. Anyhow, if an Injun is making a canoe or a pair of snowshoes, or doing any other whittling work, you will see him use one of these crooked knives, and he’ll always whittle toward him, with his thumb out at the end of the handle. I don’t know who first invented these crooked knives,” continued Alex, musingly, “but they’ve always been that way since my father can remember. As to this big buffalo knife, I suppose the Northwest Company or the Hudson Bay people invented that. They’ve been selling them in the trade for a hundred and fifty years or so.”