The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 22

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 22

The paddles used by the Micmac appear to have varied in shape. If the

canoe shown in Chapter 1 (p. 12) was indeed a Micmac canoe as supposed,

the paddle shown there is quite different from the later tribal forms

illustrated above, and it is possible that the top grips shown in the

more modern forms were never used in prehistoric times, when the pole

handle shown with the old canoe may have been standard.

 

The Micmac canoes were decorated by scraping away part of the inner

rind of the birch bark, leaving portions of it in a formal design.

It seems very probable that the Micmac seldom used this form of

decoration in early times, but later they used it a great deal in their

rough-water canoes, perhaps as a result of contact with the Malecite.

The formal designs used as decoration by the Micmac did not have any

particular significance as a totem or religious symbol; they were

used purely as decoration or to identify the owner. Such forms as the

half-moon, a star in various shapes, or some other figure might be used

by the builder, but these were apparently only his canoe mark, not a

family insignia or his usual signature, and could be altered at will.

 

The usual method of decoration was to place the canoe mark on both

sides of the canoe at the ends and to have along the gunwales amidships

a long narrow panel of decoration, usually of some simple form. The

panel decorations are said by Micmacs to have been selected by the

builder merely as pleasing designs. One design used was much like the

fleur-de-lis, another was a series of triangles supposed to represent

camps, still another was the northern lights design, a series of

closely spaced, sloping, parallel lines (or very narrow panels) that

seem to represent a design much used in the quill decoration for

which the Micmac were noted. Canoes are recorded as having stylized

representations of a salmon, a moose, a cross, or a very simple star

form; these may have been canoe marks or may once have been a tribal

mark in a certain locality. A series of half-circles were sometimes

used in the gunwale panels, which were rarely alike on both sides of

the canoe, and it is probable that use was made of other forms that

have not been recorded. Colored quills in northern lights pattern were

used in some model or toy canoes but not in any surviving example of a

full-size canoe. It is quite possible, however, that such quill-work

was once used in Micmac canoe decoration. Painting of the bark cover

for decorative purposes in Micmac canoes has not been recorded.

 

[Illustration: Figure 60

 

MICMAC CANOE, BATHURST, N.B. (_Canadian Geological Survey photo._)]

 

Historical references to the canoes of the Micmac are frequent in

the French records of Canada; it must have been Micmac canoes that

Cartier saw in 1534 at Prince Edward Island and in Bay Chaleur. The

most complete description of such canoes is in the account of Nicolas

Denys, who came to the Micmac country in 1633 and remained there almost

continuously until his death at 90, in 1688. His travels during this

period took him into Maine as far as the Penobscot and throughout what

are now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While his descriptions are

primarily concerned with the Malecite dress, houses, and hunting and

fishing techniques, his notes on birch-bark canoes seem to indicate

very clearly that he is describing a hogged-sheer Micmac rough-water

canoe. He says, for example, that the length of these canoes was

between 3 and 4½ fathoms, the fathom being the French _brasse_, so

that they ranged in length from 16 to 24 feet over the gunwales. This

gunwale length seems reasonable, since Denys gives the beam as only

about 2 English feet, obviously a gunwale measurement in view of

the great tumble-home in these canoes. That the Micmac rough-water

canoe is the subject of Denys' observations is further indicated by

his statement that the depth was such that the gunwales came to the

armpits of a man seated on the bottom. This could only be true in a

canoe having a hogged sheer in the lengths given, and is, in fact, a

slight exaggeration unless the man referred to was of less than average

height. The depth would be about 22 English inches, great even for a

24-foot canoe. Denys states that the inside sheathing of these canoes

was split from cedar. He also states that the splints were about 4

inches wide, were tapered toward the ends, and ran the full length of

the canoe. It is probable that they were butted amidships, as in known

examples; this, however, would have been covered by a rib and might not

have been noticed.

 

Denys says that the Indians "bent the cedar ribs in half-circles to

form ribs and shaped them in the fire." Adney believed this meant by

use of hot water. However, this bending could have been done by what

was known in 17th-century shipbuilding practice as stoving, in which

green lumber was roasted over an open fire until the sap and wood

became hot enough to allow a strong bend to be made without breakage.

Wood thus treated, when cooled and seasoned somewhat, would hold

the set. While it is certain that later Indians knew how to employ

hot water, it does not follow that all tribes used this method,

particularly in early times.

 

Denys also states that the roots of "fir," split into three or four

parts, were used in sewing. He apparently used "fir" as a general name

for an evergreen. It is probable that the roots used were of the black

spruce. The technique of building he describes is about the same as

that outlined in the last chapter. He says that the gunwales were round

and that seven beech thwarts were employed, practices that differ from

those in more recent Micmac canoe building, and he notes the goring of

the bark cover. Denys states the paddles were made of beech (instead

of maple as was perhaps the case) with blades about 6 inches wide and

their length that of an arm (about 27 inches), with the handle a little

longer than the blade. He also says that four, five, or six paddlers

might be aboard a canoe and that a sail was often used. "Formerly of

bark," the sail was made of a well-dressed hide of a young moose. Since

it could carry eight or ten persons, the canoe Denys is referring to is

obviously a large one. In his building description he does not mention

headboards, rail caps, or the end forms. It may be assumed that he

was then describing a canoe he had seen during construction but whose

building he did not follow step by step.

 

De la Poterie, in his book published in 1722, gives a profile and

top view of what must have been a Micmac canoe. The probable length

indicated must have been about 22 English feet overall and about 32

inches extreme beam; seven thwarts are shown.

 

Late in the 19th century there appears to have been some fusion of

Micmac and Malecite methods of construction, as Malecite built to

Micmac forms and vice versa. This apparently did not produce a hybrid

form so far as appearance was concerned but it did affect construction,

in that inner end-frames were used and other details of the Micmac

design were altered. The Micmac, having early come into close contact

with the Europeans, were among the first Indians to employ nails in the

construction of bark canoes, and this resulted in an early decadence in

their building methods. Hence, some examples of their canoes show what

the Indians termed broken gunwales, in which the ends of the thwarts

were not tenoned into the gunwales, but rather were let flush into the

top by use of a dovetail cut or, less securely, by a rectangular recess

across the gunwale, and were held in place with a nail through the

thwart end and the gunwale member.

 

From scanty references by early writers, it appears that a spiral

over-and-over lashing was originally used by the Micmac on the ends and

gunwales. The lower edges of the side panels were sewn over-and-over

a split-root batten. In some extant examples the gores are sewn with

a harness stitch; in others a simple spiral stitch is used. The

cross-stitch does not appear to have been used by the Micmac. The

gunwale caps were certainly pegged and the ends lashed; the bark cover

was folded over the gunwale tops and clamped by the caps as well as

secured by the gunwale lashings. Tacking the bark cover to the top of

the gunwales, with the cap nailed over all, marks the later Micmac

canoes. The use of nails and tacks seems to have begun earlier than

1850.

 

[Illustration: Figure 61

 

MICMAC WOMAN gumming seams of canoe, Bathurst, N.B., 1913. (_Canadian

Geological Survey photo._)]

 

In spite of decadent construction methods used in the last Micmac

birch-bark canoes, the model remained a very good one in each type.

The half-circular ends, sharp lines, and standard mid-sectional forms

were unaltered; the hogged sheer was retained in some degree in at

least two of the canoe types, the rough water and the big river,

right down to the end of bark-canoe building by this tribe. The very

fine design and attractive appearance of the Micmac canoe may have

contributed to the early acceptance by the early explorers and traders

of the birch-bark canoe as the best mode of water transport for forest

travel.

 

 

_Malecite_

 

Another tribe expert in canoe building and use was the Malecite. These

Indians were known to the early French explorers as the "Etchimins"

or "Tarratines" (or Tarytines). Many explanations have been given for

the name Malecite. One is that it was applied to these people by the

Micmac and is from their word meaning "broken talkers," since the

Micmac had difficulty in understanding them. When the Europeans came,

these people inhabited central and southern New Brunswick and the shore

of Passamaquoddy Bay, with small groups or tribal subdivisions in the

area of the Penobscot to the Kennebec. These were early affected by the

retreat of the New England Indians before the whites into eastern and

northern Maine and southeastern Quebec. As a result, the Penobscot and

Kennebec Indians became part of the group later known as Abnaki, while

the Passamaquoddy Indians remained wholly Malecite and closely attached

to those living along the St. John River in New Brunswick. Like their

neighbors the Micmac, the Malecite were hunters and warlike; during the

colonial period they were usually friendly to the French and enemies

of the English settlers in their vicinity. It is not certain that the

tribe now called by that name were actually of a single tribal stock;

it is possible that this designation really covers a loose federation

of small tribal groups who eventually achieved a common language. In

addition, the tribal designation cannot be wholly accurate because of

the fact that much of the original group living in New England were

absorbed in the Abnaki in the 17th and 18th centuries. Therefore, the

Malecite are considered here to be those Indians formerly inhabiting

valleys of the St. John and the St. Croix Rivers, and the Passamaquoddy

Bay area. The remaining portions, the Kennebec and Penobscot Indians,

must now be classed as Abnaki, of whom more later (see p. 88).

 

In considering the birch-bark canoes of the Malecite, it is important

to understand that this tribal form includes not only the types used in

more recent times in New Brunswick and on Passamaquoddy Bay, but also

an overlapping type related to the later Abnaki models. The old form

of Malecite canoe used on the large rivers and along the coast appears

to have had rather high-peaked ends, with a marked overhang fore and

aft. The end profiles had a sloping outline, strongly curved into the

bottom, and a rather sharply lifting sheer toward each end. This form

was also to be seen in old canoes from the St. John River (the lower

valley), the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot, and the upper St. Lawrence.

By late in the 19th century, however, this style of canoe had been

replaced by canoes having rounded ends, the profiles being practically

quarter-circles and sometimes with such small radii that a slight

tumble-home appeared near the sheer. The small radius of the end curves

is particularly marked in some of the seagoing porpoise-hunting canoes

of the Passamaquoddy. In modern forms, the amount of sheer is moderate

and the quick lift in the sheer to the ends is practically nonexistent.

On the St. Lawrence, the radii of the end curves are very short and

the upper part of the stems stands vertical and straight; the sheer,

too, is usually rather straight. The older type, with high-peaked

ends, was also marked by very sharp lines forward and aft, and had a

midsection with tumble-home less extreme than in the Micmac canoes. The

bottom, athwartships, was usually somewhat rounded (in coastal canoes

the form might be a rounded ~V~) and the bilges were rather slack,

with a reverse curve above, to form the tumble-home rather close to

the gunwales. The river model probably had lower ends and less rake

than the coastal type, but surviving examples of both give confusing

evidence. The river canoes usually had a flatter bottom than the

coastal type, the latter having somewhat more rocker fore-and-aft. The

sections near the ends were rather ~V~-shaped in the coastal canoes,~U~-shaped in the river canoes.