The utensils in an Indian hut are very few; one or two brass or iron kettles procured from the traders, or, if they live removed from them, pots formed of stone, together with a few wooden spoons and dishes made by themselves constitute in general the whole of them. A stone of a very soft texture, called the soap stone, is very commonly found in the back parts of North America, particularly suited for Indian workmanship. It receives its name from appearing to the touch as soft and smooth as a bit of soap; and indeed it may be cut with a knife almost equally easily. In Virginia they use it powdered for the boxes of their wheels instead of grease. Soft, however, as is this stone, it will resist fire equally with iron. The soap stone is of a dove colour; others nearly of the same quality, are found in the country, of a black and red colour, which are still commonly used by the Indians for the bowls of their pipes.
The bark canoes, which the Indians use in this part of the country, are by no means so neatly formed as those made in the country upon, and to the north of, the River St. Lawrence: they are commonly formed of one entire piece of elm bark, taken from the trunk of the tree, which is bound on ribs formed of slender rods of tough wood. There are no ribs, however, at the ends of these canoes, but merely at the middle part, where alone it is that passengers ever sit. It is only the center, indeed, which rests upon the water; the ends are generally raised some feet above the surface, the canoes being of a curved form. They bring them into this shape by cutting, nearly midway between the stem and stern, two deep slits, one on each side, in the back, and by lapping the disjointed edges one over the other. No pains are taken to make the ends of the canoes water tight, since they never touch the water.
INDIAN DEXTERITY.
On first inspection you would imagine, from its miserable appearance, that an elm bark canoe, thus constructed, were not calculated to carry even a single person safely across a smooth piece of water; it is nevertheless a remarkably safe sort of boat, and the Indians will resolutely embark in one of them during very rough weather. They are so light that they ride securely over every wave, and the only precaution necessary in navigating them is to sit steady. I have seen a dozen people go securely in one, which might be easily carried by a single able-bodied man. When an Indian takes his family to any distance in a canoe, the women, the girls, and boys, are furnished each with a paddle, and are kept busily at work; the father of the family gives himself no trouble but in steering the vessel.
The Indians that are connected with the traders have now, very generally, laid aside bows and arrows, and seldom take them into their hands, except it be to amuse themselves for a few hours, when they have expended their powder and shot: their boys, however, still use them universally, and some of them shoot with wonderful dexterity. I saw a young Shawnese chief, apparently not more than ten years old, fix three arrows running in the body of a small black squirrel, on the top of a very tall tree, and during an hour or two that I followed him through the woods, he scarcely missed his mark half a dozen times. It is astonishing to see with what accuracy, and at the same time with what readiness, they mark the spot where their arrows fall. They will shoot away a dozen arrows or more, seemingly quite careless about what becomes of them, and as inattentive to the spot where they fall as if they never expected to find them again, yet afterwards they will run and pick them every one up without hesitation. The southern Indians are much more expert at the use of the bow than those near the lakes, as they make much greater use of it.
With the gun, it seems to be generally allowed, that the Indians are by no means so good marksmen as the white people. I have often taken them out shooting with me, and I always found them very slow in taking aim; and though they generally hit an object that was still, yet they scarcely ever touched a bird on the wing, or a squirrel that was leaping about from tree to tree.
The expertness of the Indians in throwing the tomahawk is well known. At the distance of ten yards they will fix the sharp edge of it in an object nearly to a certainty. I have been told, however, that they are not fond of letting it out of their hands in action, and that they never attempt to throw it but when they are on the point of overtaking a flying foe, or are certain of recovering it. Some of them will fasten a string of the length of a few feet to the handle of the tomahawk, and will launch it forth, and draw it back again into their hand with great dexterity; they will also parry the thrust or cuts of a sword with the tomahawk very dexterously.
TOMAHAWKS.
The common tomahawk is nothing more than a light hatchet, but the most approved sort has on the back part of the hatchet, and connected with it in one piece, the bowl of a pipe, so that when the handle is perforated, the tomahawk answers every purpose of a pipe: the Indians, indeed, are fonder of smoking out of a tomahawk than out of any other sort of pipe. That formerly given to the Indians by the French traders, instead of a pipe, had a large spike on the back part of the hatchet; very few of these instruments are now to be found amongst them; I never saw but one. The tomahawk is commonly worn by the left side, stuck in a belt.
For the favourite chiefs, very elegant pipe-tomahawks, inlaid with silver, are manufactured by the armourers in the Indian department. Captain E—— has given me one of this kind, which he had made for himself; it is so much admired by the Indians, that when they have seen it with me, they have frequently asked me to lend it to them for an hour or so to smoke out of, just as children would ask for a pretty plaything; they have never failed to return it very punctually.