There are several agency schools scattered about the reservations, where the children may go to school, and happily the teachers usually encourage the children to learn their own Indian arts. The schools are really boarding schools, where the children stay continuously for nine months, being completely clothed by the Indian service. Sometimes boys and girls will escape and run home to hide, but the disciplinarian and Indian policeman usually ferret them out and bring them back, or else seize the father and hold him in jail until the scholar is produced again. Indian children are taught more of the useful arts and household arts than are the white children, but also have access to a college education through their university or normal schools.
Under the head of vegetal fibers, we also consider their uses of forest trees, since these are so closely related. As before, the plant families are listed alphabetically, and descriptions of uses are made along the same lines as in the preceding divisions of this bulletin.
OJIBWE FIBER PLANTS
ACERACEAE (MAPLE FAMILY)
Red Maple (Acer rubrum L.), “cicigîmeˈwîc”. This leaf is frequently used in the Ojibwe beadwork designs. In fact, many leaves, flowers and fruits furnish designs. Since the plants are sacred to their midewiwin or medicine lodge, it is common for them to use especially valuable remedies in their designs. These may be worked in either porcupine quills or beads. Shell and copper beads were used in the older work, while tiny glass beads obtainable from the whites are now used. Indian women are usually most apt at their own aboriginal designs and do a rather poor job, when they are given a white man’s design to copy. In the early days, the Indian men drew outline pictures on birchbark scrolls to remind them of midewiwin rituals, practices and medicines. Indian women experimented with plant materials laid upon birch bark until they found the design that suited them. Deer horns burned in the fire to furnish charcoal or else flour was used to coat the underside of a leaf, which was then pressed upon birch bark to leave its outline as from a carbon copy. The birch bark design would be placed beneath the native bead loom, as shown in [plate 48], fig. 1, and the pattern copied in beads. Sashes, anklets, bracelets, kneelets, belts, coats and waists were beaded, also moccasins. The public is not very discerning in choosing real Indian designs, but the ethnologist can quickly pick the originals, even though he may never have seen that tribe of Indians before.
Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum Lam.), “cacagobiˈmûk” [emetic bark]. The three-lobed leaf of the Mountain Maple is a great favorite with Ojibwe women for design work for beading, and it is more often seen than any other kind of leaf.
Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.), “înênatîg” [Indian tree].[144] Paddles for stirring maple sugar or wild rice while scorching or parching it, bowls and many other objects of utility were made by the Ojibwe from this wood.
APOCYNACEAE (DOGBANE FAMILY)
Spreading Dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium L.), “wesaˈwûskwûn” [nearly blue flowers]. The Flambeau women used to use the outer rind for fine sewing. In the fall, when mature this fiber makes one of the strongest native fibers, stronger even than the cultivated hemp to which it is related.