Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/437

 the North American Indians. 425

bafons, and a prodigious number of other veflels of fuch antiquated forms, as would be tedious to defcribe, and impoffible to name. Their method of glazing them, is, they place them over a large fire of fmoky pitch pine, which makes them fmooth, black, and firm. Their lands abound with proper clay, for that ufe ; and even with porcelain, as has been proved by experiment.

They make perhaps the fineft bows, and the fmootheft barbed arrows, of all mankind. On the point of them is fixed either a fcooped point of buck-horn, or turkey-cock fpurs, pieces of brafs, or flint ftone. The latter fort our fore-fathers ufed, which our witty grandmothers call elf- ilones, and now rub the cows with, that are fo unlucky as to be fhot by night fairies. One of thofe flint arrow-points is reckoned a very extraor dinary blefling in a whole neighbourhood of old women, both for the former cure, as well as a prefervative againft every kind of bewitching charm.

No people are more expert than the Indians in the ufe of fire-arms, and the bow and quiver: they can frefh ftock their guns, only with a fmall hatchet and a knife, and ftreighten the barrels, fo as to moot with proper direction. They likewife alter, and fix all the fprings of the lock, with others of the fort they may have out of ufe ; but fuch a job cofts the red artift about two months work.

They are good fadlers, for they can finim a faddle with their ufual inftruments, without any kind of iron to bind the work : but the fliape of it is fo antiquated and mean, and fo much like thofe of the Dutch Weft- Indians, that a perfon would be led to imagine they had formerly met, and been taught the art in the fame fchool. The Indians provide themfelves with a quantity of white oak boards, and notch them, fo as to fit the faddle-trees ; which confift of two pieces before, and two behind, crofTing each other in notches, about three inches below the top ends of the frame. Then they take a buffalo green hide, covered with its winter curls, and having properly fhaped it to the frame, they few it with large thongs of the fame fkin, as tight and fecure as need be ; when it is thoroughly dried, it appears to have all the properties of a cuirafs faddle. A trimmed bear- (kin ferves for a pad j and formerly, their bridle was only a rope round the

I i i horfe's

�� �