Page:The American Indian.djvu/271

Rh on the Ojibway, Menomini, Sauk and Fox, and Winnebago.

Enumerating their most characteristic traits, we have: maize, squashes, and beans cultivated (though weakly by the Ojibway); wild rice where available was a great staple; maple sugar was manufactured; deer, bear, and even buffalo were hunted, also wild fowl; fishing was fairly developed, especially sturgeon fishing on the lakes; pottery was weakly developed but formerly used for cooking vessels; vessels of wood and bark were common; some splint basketry; two types of shelter prevailed, a dome-shaped bark or mat-covered lodge for winter, a rectangular bark house for summer, though the Ojibway tended to use the conical type of the northern border group instead of the latter; canoes of bark and dug-outs were used, where possible; the toboggan was occasionally used, snowshoes were common; dog traction rare; weaving of bark fiber downward with the fingers; soft bags; pack lines; and fish nets; clothing of skins, soft-soled moccasins with drooping flaps, leggings, breechcloth, and sleeved shirts for men; for women, a skirt and jacket, though a one-piece dress was known; skin robes, some woven of rabbitskin; no armor, bows of plain wood, no lances, both the ball-ended and gun-shaped wooden club, in trade days the tomahawk; deer were often driven into the water and killed from canoes (the use of the jack-light should be noted); fish taken with hooks, spears, and nets, small game trapped and snared; work in skins confined to clothing; bags usually woven, other receptacles made of birchbark; mats of reed and cedarbark common; work in wood, stone, and bone weakly developed; probably considerable use of copper in prehistoric times; feather-work rare; a gens organization, no social classes or formal property distinctions; decorative art tending toward non-geometric forms; a secret initiation ceremony known as the Midéwiwin; a well-developed scalp dance; fixed ritualistic procedures in conducting a war party; ceremonial bundles for war, hunting, and also for social groups; mythology complex, dealing in part with the deeds of Manitou beings; elaboration of song rituals for many phases of routine life; specialization in root