The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 25

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 25

The width remained nearly constant to a point within 12 to 16 inches

of the cross-grip, then gradually widened to nearly 3 inches at the

top. The blade was 33 to 36 inches long and the whole paddle somewhere

between 73 and 76 inches long. The cross-grips were sometimes round,

at other times they were merely worked off in an oval shape to fit the

upper hand. The usual width of the cross-grip was just under 3 inches.

 

[Illustration: Figure 72

 

MALECITE CANOE DETAILS, STEM PROFILES, PADDLES, SAIL RIG, AND SALMON

SPEAR.]

 

[Illustration: Figure 73

 

LINES AND DECORATION RECONSTRUCTED FROM A VERY OLD MODEL of an ancient

woods, or pack, canoe, showing short ends and use of fiddlehead and

fire-steel form of decoration.]

 

Formerly, the Malecite placed his personal mark, or _dupskodegun_,

on the flat of the top of his paddle near the cross-grip. The mark

was incised into the wood and the incised line was filled with red or

black pigment when available. Sometimes the whole paddle, including the

blade, was covered with incised line ornamentation. This was usually a

vine-and-leaf pattern, or a combination of small triangles and curved

lines. The Passamaquoddy used designs suggesting the needlework once

seen on fine linens. Sometimes other designs showing animals, camps, or

canoes were used.

 

[Illustration: Figure 74

 

LAST KNOWN PASSAMAQUODDY DECORATED OCEAN CANOE to be built. Constructed

in 1898 by Tomah Joseph, Princeton, Maine, on the same model as a

canvas porpoise-hunting canoe.]

 

The Malecite, particularly the Passamaquoddy, were especially skillful

in decorating bark canoes, as can be seen from the illustrations (pp.

81-87). Sometimes they used scraped winter bark decoration just along

the gunwales; occasionally the whole canoe was decorated in this manner

above the normal load waterline as described on page 87. Usually,

however, the bark decoration was confined to a long panel just below

the gunwales and to the ends of the canoe. The personal "mark" of

the owner-builder would usually be on the flaps near the ends, the

_wulegessis_, meaning the outside bark of a tree or a child's diaper,

but in canoe nomenclature used to indicate the protective cover which

it formed for the gunwale-end lashings. Sometimes the Malecite placed

his mark in the gunwale decoration. Sometimes he placed a picture or

a sign on each side of the ends below the _wulegessis_, in about the

position used for insignia on the canvas "Indian" canoe.

 

The swastika was used by the Passamaquoddy in a war canoe in colonial

times and has been used later. The Passamaquoddy mark for an

exceptional canoe (such as a war canoe that won the race home) was

often on the _wulegessis_, and on a relatively modern canoe this mark,

or _gogetch_, was a picture of "a funny-looking kind of doll." A common

form of decoration in Passamaquoddy canoes was the fiddlehead curve

which resembles the top of young fern shoots. This appears in numerous

combinations; often double and back to back, joined with a long bar,

or "cross." This particular combination is known as the "fiddlehead

and cross" or as the "fire steel"; the latter because of a fancied

resemblance of the form to the shape of the old fire-making steels

of colonial times. A zigzag line appears to represent lightning to

most Indians. A series of half-circles along the gunwales, with the

rounded side down and just touching one another at the top, having a

small circle in the center of each, represents "clouds passing over

the moon." A similar series of half-circles without the center circles

might mean the canoe was launched during a new moon; the number of

half-circles shown would indicate the month.

 

[Illustration: Figure 75

 

MALECITE CANOE DETAILS AND DECORATIONS.]

 

Yet there is not full agreement among Indians about the meaning of

decorative forms; the crooked or zigzag line might also mean camps

or the crooked score stick used in a Malecite game. The circle could

mean sun or moon or month. A half-moon form might also be "a woman's

earring," or a new moon. A circle with a very small one inside might be

a "brooch," as well as "money." Right triangles, in a closely spaced

series along the gunwales, apparently meant "door cloth," or tent door

("what you lift with your hand"). Shown on pages 84 and 85 are some

Indian marks on the _wulegessis_, based upon the statements of old

Malecites or upon their sketches.

 

After the Malecite had become Roman Catholic, a fish on the middle

panel of a canoe meant that it had been launched on Friday. Pictures on

a canoe sometimes indicated a mythological story; a picture of a rabbit

sitting and smoking a pipe on one side of the canoe and a lynx on the

other would be such a case. In Malecite mythology the rabbit was the

ancestor of the tribe. He was also a great magician. The lynx was the

mortal enemy of the rabbit, but in the mythological tales he was always

overcome and defeated by the rabbit's magic. Hence, the idea conveyed

is that "though the-lynx is near, the rabbit sits calmly smoking

his pipe and as he knows he can overcome his enemy," or, in short,

"self-confidence."

 

The Indian's mark on his canoe or weapons is not a signature to be

read by anyone. The mark may, of course, be identified as to what it

represents, but unless it is known as the mark used by a certain man it

cannot be "read." Any mark could be used by an Indian, either because

it had some connection with his activities or habits, or because he

"likes it." The stone tobacco pipe used by Peter Polchies (see p.

85) as his mark had no known connection with this Indian's habits or

activities. However, his son, of the same name and well known also

as "Doctor Polchies," took the same mark, but in his case it had a

personal meaning since he was noted locally for his skill in making

stone pipes. Another case was a Passamaquoddy who at every opportunity

used to pole his canoe in preference to paddling. As a result he had

become known as "Peter of the Pole" or "Peter Pole" and he then used as

a canoe mark a representation of a setting pole. In submitting sketches

of the marking on the _wulegessis_ of canoes to old Indians it was

seldom possible to learn the identity of the owner or builder, since

the marks were usually not known to those questioned. In more recent

times, the educated Malecite signed his name in English on his canoe

and thus gave it more permanent identification.

 

[Illustration: Figure 76

 

WULEGESSIS DECORATIONS

 

"mark of Mitchell Laporte"

 

"that pot hanging was used by three or four generations--it was mark on

John Lolar's canoe in 1872"

 

"I made marks like this on wulegessis and sometimes on middle" (Charlie

Bear)

 

"mark of Noel John Sapier" (tomahawk)

 

"mark of Noel Polchies" (paddle)

 

"mark of old Peter Polchies" (stone pipe)

 

"mark of Chief Neptune" (Passamaquoddy)

 

"mark of Louis Paul"

 

"canoe was finished on new moon" (Joe Ellis)

 

"mark of old Solomon Paul"]

 

[Illustration: Figure 77

 

END DECORATIONS, PASSAMAQUODDY CANOE built by Tomah Joseph.]

 

In duplicating a design, the Malecite apparently used a pattern, or

stencil, which was preserved to allow duplication over a long period

of time. The stencil was usually cut from birch bark, apparently an

old practice, although whether it was done in prehistoric times cannot

be determined. The long contact of the Malecites with Europeans is

a factor to be considered in such matters. This is sometimes shown

in picture-writing on a canoe; one, for instance, showed a white man

fishing with rod and line from a canoe with an Indian guide. On the

opposite side was the representation of an Indian camp beside two

trees, a kettle over the fire and the brave sitting cross-legged

smoking his pipe, indicating, of course, "comfort and contentment."

 

Asking old Indians to identify or give the names of decorations, Adney

recorded statements which indicate their thought in regard to such

matters. There were used, for example, two forms of the half-moon or

crescent; one was quite open at the points which plainly indicated a

half-moon, but the other was more nearly closed: [Illustration] Mrs.

Billy Ellis, widow of Frank Francis, a Malecite, said of them, "Old

Indian earrings, that is only what I can call them. Also in nose. Wild

Indian made them of silver or moose-bone, I guess he thought he looked

nice; it looked like the devil." Joe Ellis, an old canoe builder, also

called this form "earrings" and when asked why an Indian would put

these on a canoe, replied "He will think what he will put on here. He

might have seen his wife at bow of canoe, and put it on [there]." Shown

the right-triangle-in-series design, Mrs. Ellis said "I fergit it but

I will remember; what you lift with your hand, we call it that--camp

door" (referring to the cloth or hide hung over a camp door, and raised

at one corner to enter, so that the opening is then divided diagonally).

 

In a later period, the Malecite usually confined decoration to the

_wulegessis_ and to the pieced-out bark amidships, the panel formed

on each side. The _wulegessis_ was of various forms; its bottom was

sometimes shaped like a cupid's bow, sometimes it was rectangular.

A common form was one representing the profile of a canoe. Being of

winter bark, it was red or brown, with the part where the design was

scraped showing white or yellow. The center panel was also of winter

bark, and the design on it showed a similar contrast in color. Even

when the bark cover was not pieced out, the panel was formed by

scraping all the cover except a panel amidships on each side. Old

models indicate that the early Malecite canoes may have used decoration

all over above the waterline (see p. 81) far more frequently than

has been the recent custom. The decorations were a fiddlehead design

in a complicated sequence so that it bore a faint resemblance to

the hyanthus in a formal scroll, but the design apparently had no

ceremonial significance; it was used for the same reason given Adney

for so many forms of bark decoration, "it looked nice."