Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory Part 16

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 107.]

The cloth is removed and the skins are immediately folded, with the smoked side within, and laid away for several days to season. If, however, the skin be left to the influence of the air the coloring matter immediately disappears leaving it of a color only slightly different from what it was before it was smoked.

The scars, made by the larvae of the insects, do not "take" the smoke as well as the healthy portions and so present a pitted or scaly appearance. From the skins having an abundance of the scars are made the tents and inferior grades of moccasins and the tops of the better cla.s.s of footwear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 108.--Paint stick, Nenenot.]

The paints used for decorating the buckskin garments are applied by means of bits of bone or horn of a peculiar shape best understood from the figures (Figs. 106-110).

Those with two, three or four tines are used for making the complicated patterns of parallel lines, and are always made of antler, while the simple form is sometimes of wood.

A block of wood with one or more bowl-shaped cavities cut in it (Fig.

111) serves to hold the mixed paints, especially when several colors are to be used in succession.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 109.--Paint stick. Nenenot.]

Small wooden bowls are also employed. (Figs. 112-113.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 110.--Paint stick. Nenenot.]

The pigments used are procured from different sources. From the traders are obtained indigo in the crude condition or in the form of washing blue, vermilion in small buckskin bags, and a few other colors. An abundance of red earth occurs in several localities. The pigments are reduced to the finest possible condition and kneaded with the fingers until ready for the addition of water often mixed with a slight quant.i.ty of oil or tallow. A favorite vehicle for the paint is the prepared roe of a sucker (_Catastomus_) abounding in the waters of the district.

The female fish are stripped of the ma.s.s of ova which is broken up in a vessel and the liquid strained through a coa.r.s.e cloth. The color is a faint yellow which becomes deeper with age. The fluid is allowed to dry and when required for use is dissolved in water. It has then a semiviscid consistence and in this condition is mixed with the various pigments. When a yellowish color is desired the fish-egg preparation is applied alone. The alb.u.men gives sufficient adhesive quality to the paint and produce a rich glaze, giving a good effect to the otherwise dull colors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 111.--paint cup. Nenenot.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 112.--paint cup. Nenenot.]

The process of preparing the crude mineral colors is quite tedious as the attrition is produced by rubbing the substance between two smooth stones, a little water occasionally being added to hold the particles together. The prepared paints are put in the vessels already described, and when ready for use a quant.i.ty is taken with the finger and placed in the palm of the hand while the other fingers hold the instrument by which it is to be applied. The paint stick is carefully drawn through the thin layer of paint spread on the other palm and a quant.i.ty, depending on the thickness of the layer, adheres to the edges of the appliance and by a carefully guided motion of the hand the lines desired are produced. The eye alone guides the drawing, however intricate it may be. The artist frequently attempts to imitate some of the delicate designs on a gaudy bandana handkerchief or some similar fabric. The princ.i.p.al source of the hemat.i.te is a lake near the headwaters of George's river where it occurs as a ma.s.s of disintegrated rock along the margin. The water has by freezing split great quant.i.ties from the ma.s.s and when there is a strong wind from the opposite direction the water is often lashed into a blood-red foam.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 113.--Paint cup. Nenenot.]

DWELLINGS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 114.--Nenenot Indian tent.]

The Nenenot live, both in summer and in winter, in deerskin tent, (see Fig. 114), which are constructed in the following manner: A sufficient number of small poles cut from the woods are deprived of their branches and brought to the camp site. A location is selected and the poles are erected in a circle, with tops leaning toward the center so as to form a cone 10 to 14 feet in height, having a diameter at its base of from 10 to 18 feet. The skins forming the cover are those of the reindeer, and those selected for this purpose are usually of an inferior grade.

A sufficient number are sewed together to form a strip long enough to reach around the poles when set up. As the tents differ in size according to the number of people who occupy them, the skins sewed together may be from eight to twelve. The first strip is made for the lower part of the poles and is attached to them by means of strings fastened within. A second strip is made to go around the upper part of the poles, and is, of course, correspondingly shorter. It is placed last so as to overlap the lower breadth and thus prevent rain and snow from blowing in. The door is usually made of one large skin or two smaller ones. It is tied to the poles at the upper corners and at the lower has a small log of wood as a weight to prevent it from flapping. The poles at the apex are not covered and through them the smoke from the fire built in the center within ascends and finds exit.

The interior of the tent is arranged to suit the occupants. The floor is usually covered with the branches of young spruce, and when carefully laid these form an admirable protection from the cold ground and a soft carpeting.

The women who lay this flooring display great taste, and certain of them are noted for their skill in disposing the branches. The center of the tent is reserved for the fire which is built there among a few stones.

The occupants arrange themselves according to the importance of the place they occupy in the family. The owner or head man is always to be found on the side opposite the fire. This is considered a place of honor, to which all guests who are to be complimented are invited to a seat.

The other members of the group arrange themselves along the sides of the tent, and those who have been adopted into the family occupy positions next the doorway.

Over the fire may be poles reaching across the tent, and on these will be suspended kettles and pots obtained from the traders. The cooking utensils are few in number, one vessel serving various purposes.

The hunting gear and the skins of animals, together with the articles belonging to the females may be seen suspended from various portions of the interior. Around the edges are the blankets of deerskin, and those bought from the traders, lying in disorder. The outer edge of the interior is slightly raised above the center, and affords a convenient slope for those who desire to sleep. The occupants always sleep with their feet toward the fireplace, around which there is no brush, lest it be set on fire during sleep and destroy the tent.

They have regular hours for sleeping, but as these are only for a period of short duration, it is not unusual to find half the inmates asleep at any time a tent is visited.

The preparation of the food appears to go on at all times, and there are no regular hours for partaking of their meals, as each person eats when convenient. The food is taken directly from the pot or kettle, and each one helps himself. Forks are not used, and the food is divided with a knife or torn with the fingers.

SWEAT HOUSES.

The Nenenot are in the habit of taking steam baths, for which purpose they use a sudatory or sweat house, constructed as follows: A number of flexible poles of small size, usually willow or alder, which grow to sufficient size along the banks of the streams, are bent to form a hemispherical or dome-shaped structure, which is covered with tent skins. A sandy locality is selected or one free from snow in winter, and a fierce fire is built. When it is well under way a number of stones are thrown into the fire to heat. When the heat is sufficient the fire is removed and the structure is quickly erected over the hot stones and some one from the outside fastens down the edges of the tenting with stones to prevent the loss of heat. A kettle of water previously placed within the bath house is used to pour over the stones, when heat rises to a suffocating degree and produces the desired perspiration. Water is not used to bathe in, though sometimes a slight quant.i.ty is poured upon the head only. The bather remains within the hut until the heat has nearly exhausted him.

These baths are frequently taken, and often when he has just started on a journey the head of the family will be seized with a desire to have a bath. Everything must await this operation before the journey is resumed.

An amusing incident occurred at Fort Chimo in the spring of 1882. That season the reindeer were extremely numerous at that place, as they were crossing to go to the northeast to drop the fawns. Often when the herds or bands were panic stricken they rushed among the Indian tents, the houses of the station, and, in fact, everywhere, with yelping dogs and screaming women and children at their heels. An old man and wife were in the sweat house at a time when a very large drove of the deer, in their frantic endeavors to escape their pursuers, headed directly for the bath. Some one screamed to the occupants to look out for the deer. The man and wife made their exit just as a score or more of the animals reached the spot. The man tore up the tenting of the bath house and whirled it in the air, while the old woman cut the most astonishing antics. The whole population witnessed the occurrence and did not fail to help increase the tumult. Signs of former sudatories are quite common along the paths where the Indians have traveled for many years.

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS, ETC.

Each household is supplied with sundry wooden vessels of various sizes (Fig. 115) which serve for buckets for holding water and for drinking cups. They are made of strips of thin boards cut from spruce or from larch trees, the wider strips being as much as six inches wide and one-third of an inch thick. They are steamed and bent into ovoid or circular forms and the ends of the strip overlapping. Then they are sewed with split roots from those trees. A groove is cut near the lower edge and into it is placed a dish-shaped piece of wood for a bottom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 115.--Wooden bucket, Nenenot.]

These vessels are identical in shape and function with those manufactured by the Yukon river Indians of Alaska.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 116.--Birchbark basket, Nenenot.]

They also use berry-dishes or baskets like Fig. 116 made from the bark of the spruce peeled in the spring of the year. At this time the bark is quite flexible and may be bent into the desired shape. The corners are sewed with coa.r.s.e roots from the same tree and the rim is strengthened by a strip of root sewed over and around it by means of a finer strand.

These baskets serve a good purpose when the women are picking berries, of which they are inordinately fond; and during that season it is a rarity to see a woman or man without a mouth stained the peculiar blue color which these berries impart.

Baskets of this shape frequently have a top of buckskin sewed to them, closed with a drawstring, as shown in Fig. 117 (No. 3485). Such things serve to hold trinkets and other small articles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 117.--Birchbark basket, Nenenot.]

Large objects are carried in bags, either long or basket-shaped, made of the skins of deer legs. The leg skins are sc.r.a.ped and worked to a moderate degree of pliability and their edges sewed together until a sufficient number have been joined to make the bag of the required size.

This bag is used to hold the clothing, furs, and other valuables. When on a trip they are invariably carried. If the journey be performed on foot the two ends are tied with a thong and the bag thrown over the shoulder.

In preparing food stone pestles of various sizes were formerly used of the shape shown in Fig. 118. These pestles are now mostly out of date and superseded by cast-iron ones with steel faces, procured from the traders. The metal pounders, however, are so heavy that they are objectionable to people who have to make their burdens on the portages as light as possible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 118.--Stone pestle, Nenenot.]

Spoons to lift pieces of floating meat from the hot liquor in which it is cooked, are made of reindeer antler and of wood. The pattern of these spoons is shown in the figures (Fig. 119). One shape (No. 3351, Figs.

120, 121, 122), was perhaps copied from a civilized ladle. Pots are suspended over the fire with pothooks of reindeer antler hung up by a loop of thong. These pothooks are also made of wood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 119.--Wooden spoon or ladle, Nenenot.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 120.--Wooden spoon or ladle, Nenenot.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. x.x.xVIII

STONE TOBACCO PIPES.]