While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Bark. Among the resources of nature
utilized by the tribes of North America bark was of prime importance. It was
stripped from trees at the right season by hacking all around and taking it off
in sheets of desired length. The inner bark of cedar, elm, and other trees was
in some localities torn into strips, shredded, twisted, and spun or woven. The
bark of wild flax (Apocynum) and the Asclepias were made into soft textiles.
Bark had a multitude of functions. In connection with the most important of
wants, the necessity for food, it supplied many tribes with an article of diet
in the spring, their period of greatest need. The name Adirondack, signifying
they eat trees, was applied by the Mohawk to certain
Algonquian tribes of Canada
in allusion to their custom of eating bark. The N. Pacific and some S. W. tribes
made cakes of the soft inner bark of the hemlock and spruce; those living about
the great lakes chewed that of the slippery elm, while many Indians chewed the
gum that exuded from trees. Drink was made from bark by the Arapaho, Winnebago,
and Mescaleros. Willow bark and other kinds were smoked in pipes with or in
stead of tobacco, and the juices of barks were employed in medicine.
For gathering, carrying, garnering, preparing," and serving food, bark of birch,
elm, pine, and other trees was so handy as to discourage the potter's art among
non-sedentary tribes. It was wrought into yarn, twine, rope, wallets, baskets,
mats, canoes, cooking pots for hot stones, dishes for serving, vessels for
storing, and many textile utensils connected with the consumption of food in
ordinary and in social life. Both men and women were food gatherers, and thus
both sexes were refined through this material; but preparing and serving were
women s arts, and here bark aided in developing their skill and intelligence.
Habitations in Canada, E. United States, and s. E. Alaska often had roofs and
sides of bark, whole or prepared. The conical house, near kin of the tipi, was
frequently covered with this material. Matting was made use of for floors, beds,
and partitions. Trays and boxes, receptacles of myriad shapes, could be formed
by merely bending large sheets and sewing or simply tying the joints. Bast could
be pounded and woven into robes and blankets. The Canadian and Alaskan tribes
carried their children in cradles of birch bark, while on the Pacific coast
infants were borne in wooden cradles or baskets of woven bark on beds of the
bast shredded , their foreheads being of ten flattened by means of pads of the
same material . In the S. W. the baby-board had a cover of matting. Among the
Iroquois the (lead were buried in coffins of bark. Clothing of bark was made
chiefly from the inner portion, which was stripped into ribbons, as for
petticoats in the S. W. , shredded and fringed, as in the cedar-bark country,
where it was also woven into garments, or twisted for the warp in weaving
articles of dress, with woof from other materials. Dyes were derived from bark
and certain kinds also lent themselves to embroidery with quills and over laying
in basketry. Bark was also the material of slow-matches and torches, served as
pad ding for the carrier's head and back and as his wrapping material, and
furnished strings, ropes, and bags for his wooden canoes. The hunter made all
sorts of apparatus from bark, even his bow string. The fisher wrought implements
out of it and poisoned fish with its juices. The beginnings of writing in some
localities were favored by bark, and cartography, winter counts, medical
formulas, and tribal history were inscribed thereon. Finally it comes into the
service of ceremony and religion. Such a series of masks and dance regalia as
Boas and others found among the Kwakiutl illustrates how obligingly bark lends
itself to cooperative activities, whether in amusement, social functions, or
adoration of the spirit world. There are also rites connected with gathering and
working bark. See Boas in Nat. Mus. Rep. 1895, 1897; in Hoffman in
14th Rep. B. A. E., 1896; Holmes in 3d and 13th Reps. B. A. E., 1884,
1896; Jenks in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 1900; Jones in Smithson. Rep.
1867, 1872; Mason (1) in Rep. Nat. Mus. 1887, 1889, (2) ibid., 1894,
1896, (3) ibid., 1902, 1904; Niblack, ibid, 1888, 1890;
Turner in 11th Rep. B. A. E., 1894. (O. T. M.)
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
