Chippewa Customs

POTTERY

162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BASKETRY [BULL. 86 The making of baskets was not a highly developed art among the Chippewa, as the birch-bark makuk answered the purpose of a general carrier and was made more easily than a basket. It is said, however, that baskets were made of willow branches at an early date. The "melon-shaped" basket was an old form. In the pale yellow part of this basket the willow has been peeled; in the green stripes it is not peeled. The brown stripe is made of branches that have been blighted to a limited degree, and the red stripe is of branches that have been heavily blighted. (PI. 72, a.) Covered baskets were made at an early date and the willow was sometimes colored with native dye. Baskets were made of stiff strips of the inner bark of basswood, woven in a lattice having the upright and transverse strips the same width. This custom was not observed among the Minnesota Chippewa but was seen at Lac Court Oreilles, Wis., and among the Canadian Chippewa. "Black ash" is used in making baskets by the Chippewa at Mille Lac. In preparing this wood it is their custom to take a long strip of the wood and pound it with an ax head until it separates into the sap layers. These are cut the desired width, then dyed and woven. The perpendicular and horizontal strips in these baskets are not always the same width and the colors show a wide variety. This entire custom was witnessed among the Winnebago, who said it was revealed to a woman, long ago, in a dream. Coiled baskets were made of sweet grass but were more akin to bowls, as they had no handles. It is said the oldest forms of these had covers made of birch bark bound with sweet grass. (PI. 72, b.) Birch bark is combined with coiled sweet grass in the making of a great variety of mats and shallow dishes or trays. POTTERY The older members of the tribe agree in stating that in former times their people made pottery and baked it in the fire. One informant said it was "made of clay and sand, mixed with a little glue." In 1918 the writer visited a locality in the vicinity of Lake Winnipegosis where some old graves had been "washed out." More than 250 fragments of pottery were collected, 110 of which were pieces of the rims or necks of jars. The decorations on these were typical of the pottery found in this region,76 comprising imprints .of roulette, twisted cord, woven fabric, sharp stick, or thumb nail, but 74 Cf. Holmes, W. H. Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley. Fourth Ann. Rept. Bur. Ethn., Washington, 1886. DENSMORE) CHIPP:r;WA CDS'I'o:M:s 163 these were combined in such variety that only three or four duplicates were found in the entire collection. Thirty-four fragments of j aI'S were large enough to show the curve of the sides and the size, which varied from a few inches to about a foot in diameter. The color of the pottery fr"agments also showed a wide variety, including black, orange, and very pale gray, as well as the familiar browns and reddish shades. Skeletal material was collected and submitted to Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, of the National Museum, who reported that "the bones are those of a male skeleton, in all probability Indian. They are possibly not over a few decades old." The large bones were pierced near one end, the puncture showing the use of a conical instrument and breaking into the marrow cavity. (PI. 73.) USE OF DYES The general process of dyeing consisted in the use of a vegetable substance to secure a color and a mineral substance to " set" it. Porcupine quills were the easiest material to dye and rushes were the hardest, sometimes requiring numerous "dippings" before the desired shade could be secured. Yarn and ravelings of blankets were among the materials most frequently dyed by the industrious Chippewa women. The colors most used were yellow and brown for large quantities and red for small quantities, as for quills. ,Black was more difficult to produce than these colors. Purple (" blue") was rarely used and green was never used by the Minnesota Chippewa but was seen as a native dye among the Chippewa in Ontario. The material was boiled in the dye. If a darker shade was desired, the material was...