The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 54

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 54

The intricate arrangement of deck lashings shown are required to hold

weapons and accessories. Just ahead of the paddler a stand or tray on

low legs holds the coiled harpoon line; and under the deck lashings are

held such weapons as the lance, darts, and harpoons. Toggles of bone

or ivory, often carved, are used to tighten and adjust these lines.

The Greenland kayaks carry deck fittings and gear that are far better

developed than those seen in any of the western types.

 

 

 

 

_Chapter Eight_

 

TEMPORARY CRAFT

 

 

Use of temporary craft seems to have been confined to the Indians, who

for the most part built them of bark, although some tribes used skins.

However, very little in the way of information exists on the forms

used by the individual tribes, for early travelers did not always have

opportunities to see these emergency craft, and when they did they

rarely took the trouble to record their construction and design.

 

 

_Bark Canoes_

 

There is ample evidence to support the belief that a great many of

the tribes building birch-bark canoes also used temporary canoes of

other barks such as spruce and elm, as has been mentioned in earlier

chapters. Invariably, the qualities of these other barks, particularly

spruce, were such that their use was often somewhat more laborious and

the results less satisfactory than with birch; but the necessities of

travel and the availability of materials were controlling factors, and

with care spruce bark could be used to build a canoe almost as good as

one of birch bark. The forms of these canoes do not appear to have been

as standardized as the tribal forms of the better-built bark canoes;

rather, the model of the temporary canoe was entirely a matter to be

decided by the individual builder on the basis of the importance of

the temporary canoe to his needs, the limitation on time allowed for

construction, and the material available.

 

The reasons for using substitute material are fairly obvious. In forest

travel it was not always possible or practical to portage a canoe for

a long distance simply to make a short water passage somewhere along

the route. War parties and hunters, therefore, often found it necessary

to build a temporary canoe, one that could be utilized for a limited

water passage and then abandoned. Since such a limited use did not

warrant expenditure of much time or labor on construction, the canoe

was prepared quickly from readily available material and in order

to meet these requirements many Indian tribes developed canoe forms

and building techniques somewhat different from the more elaborate

construction using birch or spruce bark.

 

It is obvious that much time and work could be avoided by use of a

single large sheet of bark that was reasonably flexible and strong. But

many of the barks meeting this specification had a coarse longitudinal

grain that split easily, so forming a canoe by cutting gores was out of

the question. This difficulty was avoided by folding, or "crimping,"

the bark cover along the gunwales at two or more places on each side of

the canoe; this permitted the bottom to be flattened athwartships and

the keel line to be rockered, both desirable in a canoe.

 

The problem of closing the ends also had to be solved. This was done

by clamping the ends of the bark between two battens and, perhaps, a

bark cord as well, and then lashing together the battens, bark ends,

and cord with wrappings of root thongs. Cord made from the inner bark

of the basswood and other trees could also be used for this purpose.

The ends of the canoe could then be made watertight by a liberal

application of gum or tallow, while grass, shavings, moss, or inner

bark mixed with gum or even clay could be used to fill the larger

openings that might appear in hurried construction.

 

Obviously, a simple wood structure was required by the specifications.

Therefore, the gunwales were usually made of saplings with their butts

roughly secured together or spliced. This allowed length to be obtained

without the necessity of working down large poles to usable dimensions,

a laborious and time-consuming undertaking with primitive tools. The

thwarts were commonly of saplings with the ends cut away so that the

thin remainder could be wrapped around the main gunwales and lashed

underneath the thwarts inboard. Ribs were usually of split saplings,

but there is some evidence that in very hurriedly built canoes the

whole small sapling was used. The kind of sheathing employed in these

canoes during the pre-Columbian era is a mystery. It would be quite

unlikely that time was taken to split splints such as were used in the

late elm-and spruce-bark canoes, when steel tools were available. The

writers believe that for small canoes it may have been the practice

to use a second sheet of stiff bark inside the first and extending

only through the middle two-thirds of the length, across the bottom

and up above the bilge but short of the gunwales. This, with the

ribs and a few poles lashed to each rib along the bottom, would have

given sufficient longitudinal strength and a stiff enough bottom for

practical use. However, in large canoes of the type reputedly employed

by Iroquois warriors, a stronger construction seems necessary, and

these canoes may have had a number of split or whole poles lashed to

the ribs along the bottom.

 

With small variations in details, the general construction outlined

above was employed by many North American Indians for building

temporary canoes for emergency use. In at least one case, however, it

was also used in canoes of somewhat more permanent status within the

boundaries of the powerful Iroquois Confederation. On large bodies

of water within their territory, the Iroquois used dugouts, but for

navigating streams and for use in raiding their enemies they employed

bark canoes. While some birch bark was available there, it was probably

widely scattered; therefore these great warriors used elm or other bark

for their canoe building.

 

Early French accounts show that the Iroquois built bark canoes of

greater size than ordinary; Champlain wrote that their canoes were of

oak bark and were large enough to carry up to 18 warriors; later French

accounts, as we shall see, indicate that the Iroquois used even larger

canoes than these. Champlain may have been in error about the Iroquois

use of oak bark, as suggested earlier (p. 7), for experiments have

shown that the inner bark of this tree is too thin and weak for the

purpose; the canoes Champlain saw may have been built of white or red

elm bark. The barks of the butternut, hickory, white pine, and chestnut

might also have been employed, as they were usually suitable.

 

It was noted by the early French writers that the Iroquois built their

bark canoes very rapidly when these craft were required by a war party

in order to attack their enemies or to escape pursuit. In one case at

least the canoes for a war party were apparently built in a single day.

This was accomplished, it seems, by the excellent organization of their

war parties, in which every man was assigned a duty, even in making

canoes.

 

When it was deemed necessary to build a canoe, certain warriors were to

search out and obtain the necessary materials in the order required for

construction. To do this effectively, they had to know the materials in

order of their suitability for a given purpose, for the most desirable

material might not be available at the building site. Other warriors

prepared the materials for construction, scraping the bark, making

thongs, and rough-shaping the wood. Others built the canoe, cutting and

sewing the bark, and shaping and lashing the woodwork. These duties,

too, required intimate knowledge of the different materials that could

be used in canoe construction. It would be natural, of course, to find

that the methods used to construct a temporary craft for a war-party

would also be employed at home by the hunter or fisherman, even when a

rather more permanent canoe was desired. These were smaller craft and

easily built. Only when a long-lasting watercraft was desired would

the bark canoe be unsatisfactory; then the dugout could be built. The

early French observers agree that though the Iroquois occasionally used

birch-bark canoes, these were acquired from their neighbors by barter

or capture and were not built by the tribesmen of the Confederation.

 

The details of the construction of elm canoes (and of other bark than

birch) by the Iroquois are speculative, since no bark canoe of their

construction has been preserved. This reconstruction of their methods

is, therefore, based upon the incomplete accounts of early writers and

upon what has been discovered about the construction of spruce-and

elm-bark temporary canoes by other Eastern Indians.

 

In view of what has been reported, it must be kept in mind that the

construction was hasty and that a minimum of labor and time was

employed; hence, the appearance of the elm-bark canoe of an Iroquois

war-party had none of the gracefulness that is supposed to mark the

traditional war canoe of the Indians. The ends are known to have been

"square," that is, straight in profile, and the freeboard low. The

use of saplings for the gunwales would cause an uneven sheer, and

its amount must have been small; the high, graceful ends seen in some

birch-bark canoes did not exist in the Iroquois model. The rocker of

the bottom profile was not a fair curve, but was angular, made of

straight lines breaking under the folds, or "crimps," in the bark cover

at the gunwales. The amount of bark in each crimp and the location

of the crimps fore-and-aft would determine the shape of the bottom

profile and the amount of rocker, as well as the flatness of the bottom

athwartships in the midbody. It appears that two crimps to the side

were employed in most of these canoes, but perhaps more, say four to

a side, might have been employed in a very large canoe. The tendency

in forming these canoes must have been toward an almost semicircular

midsection, a condition which would have produced an unstable craft if

not checked.

 

[Illustration: Figure 209

 

MALECITE AND IROQUOIS TEMPORARY CANOES. The Iroquois 3-fathom elm-bark

canoe, below, is designed to carry ten to twelve warriors.]

 

The early French writers agree that the canoes of Iroquois war parties

were sluggish under paddle. This was due to the fact that the hull

form of these canoes was not good for speed, and also because the

bulges at the bottom of the crimps caused them to be markedly unfair

at and near the waterline. This handicap in their canoes may have been

an inducement for the Iroquois to waylay their victims at portages

when the travellers were usually spread out and easily cut down while

burdened with goods. The Algonkin tribes countered by moving in very

large numbers when within striking distance of Iroquois raiders. Hence

there were very few recorded instances of battles in canoes; these took

place only when sudden meetings occurred without preparation on either

side, such as when war parties surprised canoemen in narrow waters. The

shortcomings of their canoes did not seriously affect the deadliness of

the Iroquois warriors, for their usual practice was to raid in winter,

when they could travel rapidly on snowshoes and surprise their enemies

in winter camps wholly unprepared for defense, a most pleasing prospect for the attacking warrior.