Visiting the dyer, madame, swishing her ribbons into her pots of boiling dyes and out again even as you watch, speaks with regret, and if she is an old-timer, with genuine sorrow, at the passing of the old homemade dye of which her Indian forbears knew so well the secret. “Those dyes”, she says in her soft English voice full of the plaintive tones of the red man, and rich with memories of the past, “those dyes were beautiful! and, oh, we could get such lovely colours with them! Oh, but now we couldn’t make the dyes. It would take too much, and so we use the store dyes. And of course we are very glad to get them. But the old colours were lovely.”
And in dreams, you can see, she still beholds the pinks and blues of other days. And herein lies what for her is the tragedy of the larger trade.
However, the younger woman snapping the ribbons into splint-lengths with her sharp scissors has no regrets. She holds up for inspection the spokes of the bottom-wheel. “Six colours, madame,” says she—“yellow, purple, vivid green, light blue, red and then pink.”
But the wheel turning in her hand like the wheel of fortune, brings us around to the grass again without which there can be no basket. The grass is a story in many chapters spreading out to the countryside and, crossing the river, trailing its way through St. Francois du Lac, the large town facing Pierreville, out to the French farms bordering the high-road to popular Abenaki Springs, where summer visitors go “to drink the waters” and idle away the summer days.
The grass is grown in a bed. When grown it stands up in long wisps two to three feet high. Pulled while still green, girls of the farm-family clean it of decaying leaves but do not bother to clip any clinging roots because these hold the plant together better for the braiding. Apparently it is wilted or dried only a few days when the “tresseuse” takes it in hand. All down both sides of the river thousands of miles of this grass-braid is turned out. Winter and summer the braiding goes on. We saw them braiding away in August—the same hands are braiding to-night. Abenaki fingers learned the A.B.C. of it in 1685 when they erected their wigwams on the east bank of the river and here in the year 1922 they are still—braiding.
The “braid”, of later years, has grown to be a business in itself. French farm-families of the neighborhood often grow the grass and braid it. Then they make it up in hanks or echeveaux, and retail it to the basket-weavers in Pierreville and Odanak. An Abenaki who can make more baskets than she can grow grass for, is very glad to invest a little capital in the hanks, as she also invests in the rolls of wooden ribbon from the factory.
The Abenakis, despite all the work being done in the homes, are a very neat people. They are nearly all well-to-do. Even if they do put all their dependence in one—basket! So far it has proved a very safe investment yielding a high rate of interest. They mostly all own splendid little homes, some quite fine houses in spacious grounds.
“Our village” is as sweet a village as old Quebec affords anywhere! Its main street is shaded by tall and stately old trees. In the centre of the village and situated in a grove on the high bank overlooking the river is their fine church, a simple yet dignified and peaceful little place of worship.
Father de Gonzaque, the curé, is himself of Abenaki descent and a most genial man. Calling on him one Sunday morning after Mass, the Grand Chief happened to drop in and between them they kept the Abenaki ball rolling to our enlightenment for upwards of an hour.
Father de Gonzaque is not only of Abenaki descent but he has been priest here twenty-five years. And this is the Grand Chief Nicholas Panadi’s third time of office, so we were indeed fortunate that Sunday morning.