Indian Scout Talks Part 3

The greater number of Indians, however, built conical wigwams. If made of the materials I have described, it was customary to transport the rolls of bark from place to place; the poles were cut at each new camp or left in place at the old ones. Sometimes gra.s.s and rushes were braided into mats and used as coverings and carpets. The Plains Indians used buffalo hides, nicely tanned and sewed together in semicircular shape.

The skeleton of the conical teepee is made by tying three poles together near the top, and, when raised, separating them to form a tripod.

Against this place in a circle as many poles as you think necessary to support your outer covering of cloth or thatch, usually twelve to fifteen. If of canvas, the covering is tied to a pole and then raised and wrapped about the framework and secured with wooden pins to within about three feet of the ground. This s.p.a.ce is left for the entrance and covered by a movable door, which may be merely a small blanket. If you have nothing better, a quant.i.ty of dry gra.s.s will make you a warm bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.]

Suppose an Indian brave starts out alone, or with one companion, to lay in a supply of meat or to trap for furs. All the outfit he really needs is his knife and hatchet, bow and arrows, with perhaps a canoe, according to the country he has to traverse. He proceeds on foot to a good camping-place, and there builds his shelter of whatever material is most abundant. If in the woods, he would probably make it a "lean-to,"

which is constructed thus:

In a dry and protected spot, find two trees the right distance apart and connect them by poles laid upon the forks of each at a height of about eight feet. This forms the support of your lean-to. Against this horizontal bar place small poles close together, driving their ends in the ground, and forming an angle with about the slant of an ordinary roof. You can close in both sides, or not, as you choose. If you leave one open, build your fire opposite the entrance, thus making a cheerful and airy "open-face camp." Thatch from the ground up with overlapping rows of flat and thick evergreen boughs, and spread several layers of the same for a springy and fragrant bed. You can make a similar shelter of gra.s.s or rushes, but in this case you must have the poles closer together.

The dome-shaped wigwam or "wicki-up" is made in a few minutes almost anywhere by sticking into the ground in a circle a sufficient number of limber poles, such as willow wands, to make it the size you need. Each pair of opposites is bent forward until they meet, and the ends interlocked and tied firmly. Use any convenient material for the covering; an extra blanket will do.

You can make any of these tent shelters with no tool save your hatchet or strong knife. The object is to protect yourself and your possessions from cold, wind, rain, and the encroachment of animals. As to the last, however, they are not likely to trouble you unless very hungry, and a fire is the best protection. He is the natural and true man who utilizes everything that comes in his way; a cave, a great hollow tree, even an overhanging rock serves for his temporary home, or he cheerfully spreads his bed under the starry night sky.

X-FIRE WITHOUT MATCHES AND COOKING WITHOUT POTS

It is often of interest to boys to make a fire in the primitive way: by friction; perhaps to produce the "new fire" for some ceremonial occasion, or it may be to win honors as a scout. If a boy is fond of wilderness camping, it is possible that such knowledge may prove of vital importance to him some day, for even the experienced woodsman may be caught out without matches, or may get his matches wet.

This is the way the Indians made fire before they obtained matches or flint and steel from the white man, and the way I have many times done it myself as a boy. For tools you need a block, a drill, a bow, a socket, and some tinder, dry punk, or cat-tail down, all of which you can make or find in the woods.

For the first, take a smooth piece of pine board, cedar, ba.s.swood, cottonwood, or any other wood, but these are soft and easy to work. It should be a foot long by two inches wide and about half an inch in thickness. Make a round hole or pit in the center half through the board. From this hole cut a notch or groove to the edge of the board.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.]

For the drill, take a hard wood stick about a foot long, whittled down at both ends to fit the hole in block. A piece of wood two by six inches with a hole halfway through its thickness to fit the upper end of the drill forms the socket.

If you have no bow with you, make one of any limber stick two feet long, with a loose buckskin or other thong.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7.]

Now put a little tinder-shredded birch-bark or dry pine-needles-along the groove in your block and especially at its upper end. Adjust your fire-maker, wind the bowstring once about the drill, place a foot on each end of the block while your left hand supports and presses down on the socket, and your right saws with the bowstring, causing the drill to revolve rapidly in the hole. This friction in time produces smoke and then sparks, which, when you blow upon them, ignite the tinder. It is then only a matter of sufficient dry bark and kindling to make a good fire. You cannot fail after a little practice, if you follow directions carefully. Mr. Seton's record time for making fire in this way is thirty-one seconds, but it will be more likely to take you from one to three minutes, even after you have experimented a little.

The Indian or expert woodsman is never at a loss for dry fire material in the wettest woods. He knows how to look for the _inside_ bark of the birch and the _inside_ of dead stumps and logs; and a good fire, once kindled, will burn on even under discouraging circ.u.mstances.

Indian methods of cookery are of interest in camp, more particularly if the common utensils have been dispensed with as too c.u.mbersome to carry.

Neither pots, pans, nor dishes are essential to a good meal in the woods. Berries, some roots, smoked or sun-dried meats may be eaten raw, also eggs, though the latter are preferred cooked by the Indian. He is especially fond of turtle eggs, which are buried in the sand along the lake sh.o.r.es and may be found by searching for them with a pole in the spring.

The simplest method of cooking thin pieces of meat is by broiling over a bed of live coals, upon a long-handled p.r.o.nged stick or fork of green wood. The meat is turned as often as necessary and is perfectly done in a few minutes.

Roasting is done by spitting your haunch of venison or other large piece of meat upon a stick two to four feet long and sharpened at both ends.

This may be thrust into the ground at the right distance from the blaze and turned occasionally, or suspended over the fire from a cross-bar of green wood by a hooked stick, or "planked" against a flat rock inclined toward a hot fire.

The only method of boiling known to the Indian before the white man came with iron and copper kettles was crude but very ingenious, and is known as "stone-boiling." We dug a hole in which we placed a dozen or more round stones of medium size, and over these we built a good fire. About the hole in a square we drove four forked sticks of green wood, and from these suspended a square piece of tripe or rawhide, cutting a small hole in each corner to admit the p.r.o.ng of the support. This bag-kettle was then half filled with water. The heat of the fire soon contracted it, and from time to time a red-hot stone was lifted from the fire and dropped into the water by means of two sticks. When the water boiled, we put in a small piece of meat, and by adding now and then another piece and a hot stone, and taking out the meat as fast as cooked, a savory boil was produced. We liked starchy roots or spicy leaves boiled with our meat, and of these we had a variety to choose from. We had also wild rice and hulled corn, but no bread.

When you wish to hunt or to leave camp for any length of time while your meal is cooking, none of these methods will do, and you had better resort to casing the food in wet clay and burying fairly deep in ashes or sand under a good fire. If you have birds it is only necessary to wet the feathers thoroughly before burying them, and they will come out juicy and delicious under a black coat that peels off like the skin of an onion. Fish cooks perfectly in this manner, as do potatoes, green corn, sh.e.l.l fish-in fact, almost anything. It should be done in two or three hours, but you may leave it all day if necessary without harm.

Every camper or Boy Scout should familiarize himself with all the edible roots, herbs, fruits, and fungi in his locality. Lives have been saved by this knowledge, especially in the north woods. Lichens and the inner bark of certain trees are "famine foods," eaten by Indian and white man when hunger presses and no other food is to be found.

The Indian method of preserving fresh meat in summer by "jerking," or cutting in thin strips and drying on poles in the sun (no salt being needed), is useful only on the high central plains where the air is dry.

All kinds of berries and wild fruits are easily sun-dried for future use.

The "cache," an Indian custom extensively copied by white hunters and trappers, is the concealment of reserve stores of food, usually in a hole in the ground, protected by an inner wrapping of bark or rawhide.

The mouth of the "cache" is well hidden by building a fire over it, or by covering with rocks, brush, dry leaves, or sand, according to the locality.

XI-HOW TO MAKE AND FOLLOW A BLAZED TRAIL

The blazed trail is especially designed for those who travel in the deep woods, where these simple guide-posts are necessary at times, if only for temporary use. The Indian hunter sometimes finds himself with a limited time in which to provide his winter's supply of meat, before the opening of the trapping season. In such an event, he would not take time to carry all his game home, but would blaze connecting trails to where he had killed and hung up the different animals, and a direct road home.

There is also the trapper's trail, the regular path between established camps, and the concealed or secret blazed trail. We shall consider each of these varieties in order.

The blazed trail meant for general use-the public highway, as it were-may not always be the shortest road, but it will be the easiest and most convenient. You may blaze such a trail to the mountain-top for the finest view, or to your cabin in the woods. The blazes on the trees will be obvious and near together, about three inches long and three feet from the ground. At every turn a sapling is felled, at the same height as the blaze, the felled top hanging on its stump and pointing in the desired direction.

The game trail differs from the above in several respects. The blazes are smaller and are about five feet high; they are also further apart-about twenty to twenty-five paces. At each turn the hack is deeper, and if to the left, it is made on the left side of the tree, if to the right, on the right side. The blazes are more open to view when coming from the camp, as when the scout has gone over it once, he can always follow it back home. An Indian game trail is very indistinct to one who is not looking for it, and even then it requires training to follow it readily. To one who is a thoroughly competent woodsman, each mark is a real blaze of light, quite unmistakable.

If you wish to blaze a trail correctly, you must place your mark accurately on the right tree and on the right side of the tree. You should not disfigure the trees, and you will not, if you do your work as well as the Indian. If you go about gashing them indiscriminately, your work will be an eyesore, and besides, everybody will know your trail. It should be just enough guide for your friends, neatly done, and courting no unnecessary publicity.

The trapper's trail is one more degree nearer a concealed blaze. It is blazed on each noteworthy tree, twenty to thirty paces apart, and even higher than the game trail. At a point opposite the first trap, there is a peculiar hack, a double hack, or a twig clipped, varying with the code of the individual. In any case, you are directed toward the lake sh.o.r.e or river bank, where you find an upright stick broken off two feet from the ground and bent over until it touches the water. This means the trap is in the water. If the broken part does not reach the water, it means look for it on sh.o.r.e, and if a birch-bark ring is added, it means the trap is in a hole. At each point a certain sign leads you approximately near the trap, where you get a hint as to its closer whereabouts.

This kind of trail does not begin at the camp, but at a point which may be orally described, in case the trapper is unable to visit his traps and must send his wife or some member of his family. He then entrusts the messenger with his personal code, which sometimes includes the sign for the animal he is trapping.

The concealed blaze is used by a party on the war-path, so that another war-party of the same tribe may overtake them or discover their camp. It was not usual to blaze a war-path unless another party was likely to follow. In such a contingency, the first party leaves an occasional blaze high up on the tree and pointing in the direction in which they are traveling. Such blazes are only made at well-known points and are looked for by those who come after. When the high blaze is found, other information is sought for, which may be given by means of signs or hieroglyphics in a concealed place.

If a party of boys are out for a hike over roads which are not well known, and there are stragglers, the leader may indicate the trail by Indian signs. At the cross-roads he may tie a bunch of gra.s.s to a low branch on the right side of the road he takes. If he leaves the path entirely, he must stick up a rod with a knot of gra.s.s tied to the top, bending it in the right direction. If at any point he desires to return and meet the others, he breaks two opposite twigs toward one another, as a sign in case he misses them. If he wishes his party to camp there, he draws a circle on the ground. This system is used a great deal by the Indians when two or three families are roving together in the deep woods, hunting or trapping game. When there is only one family, and they are within the danger-line from tribal enemies, the hunter uses a concealed blaze for his wife to follow, and he may adopt a special code whose meaning is known to no one but the two. When he wishes to be particularly obscure, he makes his blaze inside a group of trees. It is a right-angled gash pointing straight to the next blaze.

I remember that I was once instructed to follow a hunter's trail, together with several other boys. We were in the country of the Crees, who were at war with us; but game was abundant, and there was no better location, therefore our hunters took extra chances of danger. However, every precaution was observed.

One of our men had killed a moose late in the afternoon, and on the next morning we boys were instructed to find it and bring home the meat. The first blaze was perhaps half a mile from our camp, on the inside of one of four large birch trees. Above the blaze were two hacks, and above this the mark of an arrow-head. This meant to follow the blaze two hundred paces in the direction of the arrow, and then search for another mark. The next arrow pointed diagonally toward the lake, and two hundred paces further we came out upon the lake sh.o.r.e. We followed the sh.o.r.e to a conspicuous tree, upon the bark of which we discovered a small blaze and the figure of an animal. About fifty paces from this last blaze, we found the moose.

In a prairie country, where there are no trees, stones are piled upon the hills or b.u.t.tes in a manner to give information to those who come after. Many of these large boulders or cone-shaped heaps of stones were discovered in the prairie states when settlement was made, and some well-known ones have been preserved for many years as historic landmarks.

We Indians never stand boldly out upon a hilltop without having first lain flat and surveyed the country from a concealed position to see that no danger is in sight. We then place the stones so as to convey intelligence to our friends. One is placed with the apex pointing in the direction in which the traveler is going, and several more behind the main pile show from whence he came. If he has seen signs of the enemy, he places two small stones on either side of the central stone. If he cannot go further, he puts these in front of the central one, meaning an obstacle in the path, or reverses the three on the opposite side, meaning that he will return. An old stone pile may be used again and again by slightly displacing the stones. This is the prairie "blazed trail."

XII-INDIAN SIGNALS IN CAMP AND FIELD