Stránka:roll 1931.djvu/140

124 Woodcraft Birch Bark Roll be made by boiling hemlock, oak or balsam bark in water till it is like brown ink; then soaking the hide therein for a few days. But the Indians preferred the brain mash. In erder to keep the skin from hardening again after being wet, it is necessary to smoke it. For this, a clear fire should be smothered with rotten wood ; then the hide is fastened into a cone with a few wooden pins, and hung in the dense smoke for a couple hours, first one side out, then the other ; till it is all of a rich smoky-tan color, and has the smell so well known to those who have handled the real Indian leather. I LL 1, ete. . Indian Pottery Matilda Coxe Stevenson has described the making of pot- tery by the Zufii Indians as follows: The only implements used in making pottery are the bottom of a discarded water vase and a sort of trowel made of a gourd or a suitable fragment of pottery. No wheel is used, nor is any kind of lathe or revolving support known to _ these people. “‘The clay is ground to a powder and mixed with a small quantity of pulverized pottery, fragments of the latter being carefully hoarded for this purpose. The powder thus com- pounded is mixed with water enough to make a pasty mass, ‘which is kneaded like dough. The more care taken in pul- verizing the material, and the more time spent in working it, the finer becomes the paste. When the mass reaches such a state of consistency that the fingers can no longer detect the presence of gritty particles, it is still more delicately tested with the tongue; and when found to be satisfactory, it is placed in a vessel, and covered with a cloth, where it will retain the moisture until wanted for use. “In beginning the work, a sufficient quantity is first made into a ball, and then hollowed out with the fingers, until it assumes a conventional bowl shape; which serves as the foundation to be afterward built up and elaborated into any desired shape. The vessel is then formed by the successive additions of strips of the paste long enough to encircle the bowl, each layer being pressed on the brim with the fingers and accurately fitted, the trowel being then skillfully used to finish the joining, and to remove all traces of the original separation of the strips. “Most of the work of modeling the vessel into its final