Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/189

Rh with regard to proportions of width and depth. This solid butt he would then split with wedges, and by burning and gouging would hollow it out, reducing the sides and bottom to the utmost thinness consistent with buoyancy and security. This was the “dug-out.” And this, as well as the birchen canoe, admitted of gay ornament or of frightful and hideous devices, in carving and painting, as a vessel of war, according to the taste and skill of the artist. Nor were the skill and cunning of the Indian exhausted in these two serviceable styles of watercraft. With a single buffalo or deer skin, or with several of them stitched together and stretched over a frame of osiers, he would readily extemporize a conveyance through the waters for one or many. As readily, too, from the trunks or branches of prostrate trees would he improvise a sea-worthy raft.

The moccason, also, in name and device, was original with the North American Indian, and, without being patented, holds the ground as — for him, and, we might add, for many of us — the most fitting, convenient, and healthful foot-gear. The dressed or tanned hide of the deer furnished its upper and lower leather; a small bone of a fish, or one near the ankle-joint of the deer, provided the needle, and the sinews the thread, for sewing. The seam was behind the heel and over the foot, instead of, as in our fabrics, at the sole or bottom. The moccason was made of one piece of skin. Unlike our heavy boots, it did not impede the perspiration of the foot, and it saved the Indian from corns and bunions. The wearer was not apt to take cold, as by a leak in a shoe or boot. It was easily dried, and easily mended. It was equally adapted by its smoothness for treading upon the tender bottom of a canoe, and, by its pliancy and elasticity, for coursing forest paths or climbing rocks.

In the rougher regions of the Northwest, and especially for the uses of the “voyageurs, the trappers, and the