The rough stone for a pipe is selected and chipped into crude form. The successive operations of wearing it down to the desired size are accomplished by means of a coarse file or a harder stone. The amount of labor bestowed upon a pipe consumes several days’ time before the final polish is given.
The value set upon these pipes is according to the color of the stone, as much as the amount of labor expended in making them. They are always filthy, partly on account of the bad quality of tobacco used. The ashes and other accumulations within are removed by means of a bodkin-shaped instrument of bone or horn. The back of a broken horn comb is a favorite material for making a decorated pipe-cleaner (Fig. 124). The ornamentations consist of cruciform and quadrate figures on the handle. The tobacco used for smoking is the commonest black plug of very inferior quality, soaked with molasses and licorice. This moist tobacco is cut into pieces and a coal of fire placed upon it. They prefer this quality, and purchase the lighter and drier kinds only to serve as kindling for the darker sort.
They do not know how to brew or ferment liquors of any kind, and as the importation of intoxicants is wisely prohibited, the native has no opportunity to indulge in his craving for liquors, the supply of which was plentiful in former years. A spruce beer is made by the servants of the company for the holidays, and a taste is sometimes given to a favorite Indian, who is so easily affected that a pint of this mild beer will send him reeling and happy to his tent, where it soon becomes known that beer is to be had. The importunities for drink are now so frequent, that the barrel must be emptied of its contents in order to avoid the constant beggings for it.
[ MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION.]
[BY WATER.]
All the Indians of this region use birch-bark canoes, of the pattern shown in the figure (Pl. XXXIX, from a photograph; the collection also contains six wooden models of these canoes). The style of canoe used by the Little Whale river Indians of the eastern side of Hudson bay has very much more sheer at the bow and stern than those used in the valley of the Koksoak. The canoe of each individual differs from others according to the personal taste or need of the maker. The requirements are that the canoe shall be able to transport himself and family, together with the household property, whenever it is desired to change camps. Some of the canoes are small, others large, often possessed by two or more individuals in common.
[ BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIX]
BIRCH-BARK CANOE, NENENOT, KOKSOAK RIVER PATTERN.