They peeled off the bark with their teeth and nails, and split one end of the stem.
Then they held one piece with their teeth and pulled the other two pieces with their hands.
The splints that they made in this way were neither round nor flat.
They had three sharp corners.
Two of these corners were hard and tough, but one was soft and pithy.
So they bit the pithy corner and pulled off a long strand of pith.
This left a thick splint that was nearly flat.
The women found that it was hard work to split the larger stems.
They were about to give it up when Firekeeper found a large stem whose layers of wood peeled easily.
So they all tried to find such stems.