Their edged weapons, fashioned from stone, bones, and reeds, and used with great skill, assisted them effectually when brought to close quarters with their prey. Dogs, although not regularly trained, they found of much value in the hunt, especially for tracking down the more swift and savage beasts. With the assistance of fire the hunter's conquest over the animal became assured. His prey would be driven out of its hiding-place by smoke, or the torch would dazzle it. Drugging animals with poisonous roots and polluting streams to capture fish were largely practised. The use of nets and scoops for taking animals from the water and the fashioning of rakes for securing worms from the earth were other methods employed to obtain food. The use of the canoe gave rise to the invention of the harpoon.
The wandering habits of their game and the construction of fences were obstacles which strengthened their perception and gave excellent training for the hunt. The variety of circumstances with which they had to meet caused them to prepare or devise the many weapons and snares to which they resorted. Certain periods or seasons of the year were observed for the hunting of particular animals, each of which figured as a token or heraldic symbol of a tribe or gens.
Schoolcraft, in an accurate and entertaining account of Indian hunting in his Historical and Statistical Information respecting the Indian Tribes, says:
"The simplest of all species of hunting is perhaps the art of hunting the deer. This animal, it is known, is endowed with the fatal curiosity of stopping in its flight to turn round and look at the object that disturbed it; and as this is generally done within rifle-range, the habit is indulged at the cost of its life; whereas, if it trusted unwaveringly to its heels, it would escape.
"One of the most ingenious modes of hunting the deer is that of fire-hunting, which is done by descending a stream in a canoe at night with a flambeau. In the latter part of spring and summer the Indian hunters on the small interior rivers take the bark of the elm or cedar, peeling it off whole, for five or six feet in length, and, turning it inside out, paint the outer surface black with charcoal. It is then pierced with an orifice to fit it on the bow of the canoe, so as to hide the sitter; then a light or torch is made by small rolls, two or three feet long, of twisted birch bark (which is very inflammable), and this is placed on the extreme bow of the boat, a little in front of the bark screen, in which position it throws its rays strongly forward, leaving all behind in darkness. The deer, whose eyes are fixed on the light as it floats down, is thus brought within range of the gun. Swans are hunted in the same way.
"The mazes of the forest are, however, the Indian hunter's peculiar field of action. No footprint can be impressed there with which he is not familiar. In his temporary journeys in the search after game he generally encamps early, and sallies out at the first peep of day on his hunting tour. If he is in a forest country he chooses his ambush in valleys, for the plain reason that all animals, as night approaches, come into the valleys. In ascending these he is very careful to take that side of a stream which throws a shadow from it, so that he may have a clear view of all that passes on the opposite side, while he is himself screened by the shadow. But he is particularly on the alert to take this precaution if he is apprehensive of lurking foes. The tracks of an animal are the subject of the minutest observation; they tell him at a glance the species of animal that has passed, the time that has elapsed, and the course it has pursued. If the surface of the earth be moist, the indications are plain; if it be hard or rocky, they are drawn from less palpable but scarcely less unmistakable signs.
"One of the largest and most varied days' hunt of which we are apprised was by a noted Chippeway hunter, named Nokay, on the upper Mississippi, who, tradition asserts, in one day, near the mouth of the Crow Wing River, killed sixteen elk, four buffaloes, five deer, three bears, one lynx, and a porcupine. This feat has doubtless been exceeded in the buffalo ranges of the south-west, where the bow and arrow is known to have been so dexterously and rapidly applied in respect to that animal; but it is seldom that the chase in forest districts is as successful as in this instance.
"On one occasion the celebrated chief Wabojeeg went out early in the morning, near the banks of Lake Superior, to set martin-traps. He had set about forty, and was returning to his wigwam, armed with his hatchet and knife only, when he encountered a buck moose. He sheltered himself behind trees, retreating; but as the animal pursued, he picked up a pole, and, unfastening his moccasin-strings, tied the knife firmly to the pole. He then took a favourable position behind a tree and stabbed the animal several times in the throat and breast. At length it fell, and he cut out and carried home the tongue as a trophy of his prowess.
"In 1808, Gitshe Iawba, of Kewywenon, Lake Superior, killed a three-year-old moose of three hundred pounds weight. It was in the month of February, and the snow was so soft, from a partial thaw, that the agim, or snow-shoes, sank deep at every step. After cutting up the animal and drawing out the blood, he wrapped the flesh in the skin, and, putting himself under it, rose up erect. Finding he could bear the weight, he then took a litter of nine pups in a blanket upon his right arm, threw his wallet on top of his head, and, putting his gun over his left shoulder, walked six miles to his wigwam. This was the strongest man that has appeared in the Chippeway nation in modern times.
"In 1827, Annimikens, of Red River of the North, was one day quite engrossed in looking out a path for his camp to pass, when he was startled by the sharp snorting of a grizzly bear. He immediately presented his gun and attempted to fire; but, the priming not igniting, he was knocked by the animal, the next instant, several steps backward, and his gun driven full fifteen feet through the air. The bear then struck him on one cheek and tore away a part of it. The little consciousness he had left told him to be passive, and manifest no signs of life. Fortunately, the beast had satiated his appetite on the carcass of a buffalo near by. Having clawed his victim at pleasure, he then took him by the neck, dragged him into the bushes, and there left him. Yet from such a wound the Indian recovered, though a disfigured man, and lived to tell me the story with his own lips.
"Relations of such hunting exploits and adventures are vividly repeated in the Indian country, and constitute a species of renown which is eagerly sought by the young."
Costume
The picturesque costume of the Red Man is so original in character as to deserve more than passing mention. An authority on Indian costume, writing in Bulletin 30 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, says:
"The tribes of Northern America belong in general to the wholly clothed peoples, the exceptions being those inhabiting the warmer regions of the southern United States and the Pacific coast, who were semi-clothed. Tanned skin of the deer family was generally the material for clothing throughout the greater part of the country. The hide of the buffalo was worn for robes by tribes of the plains, and even for dresses and leggings by older people, but the leather was too harsh for clothing generally, while elk- or moose-skin, although soft, was too thick. Fabrics of bark, hair, fur, mountain-sheep wool, and feathers were made in the North Pacific, Pueblo, and southern regions, and cotton has been woven by the Hopi from ancient times. Climate, environment, elevation, and oceanic currents determined the materials used for clothing as well as the demand for clothing. Sinew from the tendons of the larger animals was the usual sewing material, but fibres of plants, especially the agave, were also employed. Bone awls were used in sewing; bone needles were rarely employed and were too large for fine work. The older needlework is of exceptionally good character and shows great skill with the awl. Unlike many other arts, sewing was practised by both sexes, and each sex usually made its own clothing. The typical and more familiar costume of the Indian man was of tanned buckskin, and consisted of a shirt, a breech-cloth, leggings tied to a belt or waist-strap, and low moccasins. The shirt, which hung free over the hips, was provided with sleeves and was designed to be drawn over the head. The woman's costume differed from that of the man in the length of the shirt, which had short sleeves hanging loosely over the upper arm, and in the absence of the breech-cloth. Women also wore the belt to confine the garment at the waist. Robes of skin, woven fabrics, or of feathers were also worn, but blankets were substituted for these later.
