USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 6
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Van der Donck, at the Mohawk, in 1655, also found that "the Indians, when they travel by water, usually come in canoes made of the bark of trees, which they know how to construct".
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Joseph Hadfield was in Montreal in 1785. On July 25 he "was favored with the particulars of the articles for the loading of a canoe" of a trader. The items included sixty-four packages of merchandise, weighing 5,540 pounds, the crew of nine and their belongings adding 2,710 pounds, making the total of the weight carried, 8,250 pounds, or four and a quarter tons. "These canoes are about 35 feet long, 41/2 broad and thirty inches deep. They have eight men and a clerk. As the construction of the canoes is extremely curious that are made use
Indians Making Dugout Canoe
of in the Indian trade, I have procured a tolerable description of the mode of making them. They pick out a thick, tall elm, with a smooth bark, and with as few branches as possible. This tree is cut down and great care is taken to prevent the bark being hurt by falling against other trees, or against the ground. With this view some people do not fell the tree but climb up to the top of them, split the bark and strip it off. The bark is split on one side, in a straight line along the tree, as long as the canoe is intended to be. At the same time the bark is carefully cut from the stem a little way on both sides of the split, that it may separate more easily. The bark is then peeled off carefully and particular care is taken not to make any holes in it. This is not difficult when the sap is in the trees and at other seasons the tree is heated by fire for that purpose. The bark thus split off is spread on the ground in a smooth place, turning the inside downwards and the rough outside upwards and to stretch it better some logs of wood or stones are put on it, which press it down. Then the sides of the bark are gently pressed upwards, in order to form the sides of the boat. Some sticks are then fixed into the ground at a distance of
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three or four feet from each other in the canoe line, in which the sides of the boat are intended to be, supporting the bark intended for the sides. The sides of the bark are then bent in the form which the canoe is to have and according to that, the sticks are put either nearer or farther off. The ribs of the boat are made of cedar, sometimes hickory, both being tough and pliable. These are cut into flat pieces about an inch thick and bent into the form the ribs require, according to their places, either in the broader or narrower part of the canoe. Being thus bent, they are put across the bottom pretty close, a few inches asunder. The upper edge on each side of the boat is made of two poles of the length of the boat, which are put close together, on the side of the boat, being flat where they are to be joined. The edge of the bark is put between these two poles and sewed up with the thread of gut of the moose, wood or other tough bark, or with roots. But before it is thus sewed up, the ends of the ribs are likewise put between the two poles, one on each side, taking care to keep them at same distance from each other. After this is done, the poles are sewed together and being bent properly, both their ends join at each end of the boat where they are fastened together. To prevent the widening of the boat, several transverse bands or boards are put across which serve as well for seats as to strengthen it. As the bark at the two ends of the boat cannot be put so close together, or sewed, which is the mode in general, so as to keep the water out, the crevices are stopped up with crushed or pounded bark of the said elm, which in that state looks like oakum. As the foot could easily pierce the boat, without some precaution, they lay long poles at the bottom, lengthway, which pressing equally on all parts, serve to support and strengthen it, taking the load or weight that is in it. They also lay thin, loose boards at the bottom to keep the goods dry. The inside of the bark thus becomes the outside of the boat, because it is smooth and slippy and cuts the water better. They are very particular in the choice of the bark to see that it is sound and has no holes or broken parts. All possible precautions must be taken in rowing on the rivers and lakes, for as there are trees and other impediments which are concealed in the water, the boat might easily run against a sharp branch which would tear the canoe from one end to the other, if they were paddling or rowing fast. But of all the dangers the shallows or rapids are the worst and the navigation of the Grande Rivière is full of them. The people are often exposed and yet few accidents happen."
In appraising the value of Hadfield's description it must be real- ized that, in point of time, he was far from the primitive and almost into the industrial age. He was describing canoes, which if not actually made by Europeans, were at least designed for their particu- lar needs. They were the freight carrying craft of the traders on the long and arduous journey up the St. Lawrence, through Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Huron to Michilimackinac, on the upper peninsula of Michigan. For such use, Elm bark would have been far more durable than birch.
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On coming to America, Hadfield landed in Virginia, proceeding by degrees to Montreal. Of canoes seen in other localities, he said, "There is also another sort of canoe made out of the trunks of trees, mostly a solid piece hollowed out. Many of these are forty feet long and two wide. They are generally made use of throughout these countries and are very serviceable". Finally, he adds, "The people, both Canadians as well as Indians are very dexterous in the managing of them".
André Michaux (1746-1802), a French botanist, resided in America from 1785 to 1796 for the purpose of studying, for the French Government, the plants and natural resources of the country. His son, François André Michaux (1770-1855), accompanied him from 1785 until 1790 and came again, 1801-1803 and 1805-1808. François Michaux published in 1810, 1812, 1813, the three-volume Histoire des Arbres Forestiers de l'Amerique Septentrionale. An English edition was published in three volumes in 1817-1819, under the title, The North American Sylva. Volume 2, page 87, reads thus,-
"In Canada, and in the District of Maine, the country people place large pieces of the canoe birch immediately below the shingles of the roof, to form a more impenetrable covering for their houses; baskets, boxes, and portfolios are made of it, which are sometimes embroidered with silk of different colors; divided into very thin sheets, it forms a substitute for paper; and, placed between the soles of the shoes and in the crown of the hat, it is a defence against humidity. But the most important purpose to which it is applied, and one in which it is replaced by the bark of no other tree, is the construction of canoes. To secure proper pieces, the largest and smoothest trunks are selected; in the spring, two circular incisions are made, several feet apart, and two longitudinal ones on opposite sides of the tree; after which, by introducing a wooden wedge, the bark is easily detached. These plates are usually ten or twelve feet long, and two feet nine inches broad. To form the canoe, they are stitched together with fibrous roots of the white spruce, about the size of a quill, which are deprived of the bark, split, and suppled in water. The seams are coated with resin of the Balm of Gilead. Great use is made of these canoes by the savages and by the French Canadians, in their long journeys into the interior of the country; they are very light, and are easily transported on the shoulders from one lake or river to another, which is called the portage. A canoe calculated for four persons with their baggage, weighs from forty to fifty pounds; some of them are made to carry fifteen passengers."
John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843), a British botanist, published, 1833-1839, Aboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum. Though he does not appear to have ever visited America, in volume 3, page 1709, he has this to say of the birch, ---
"In the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company, tents are made from the bark of the canoe birch, which, for that purpose, is cut into pieces twelve feet long and four feet wide. These are sewed together by threads of the white spruce roots, already mentioned;
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and so rapidly is a tent put up, that a circular one of twenty feet in diameter and ten feet high does not occupy more than half an hour in pitching. The utility of these 'rind tents', as they are called, is acknowledged by every traveller and hunter in the Canadas. They are used throughout the whole year; but, during the hot months of June, July, and August, they are found particularly comfortable."
In A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts (1846), G. B. Emerson said,-
"From the tough, incorruptible bark of the canoe birch, were formed the canoes of the former inhabitants of New England, models of ingenuity and taste, so admirably adapted, by their lightness and shape, to the interrupted navigation of the savage.
"This birch, in some parts of the northern regions, attains a diameter of six or seven feet. It is said not to occur far south of the Hudson."
The 1875 edition of the same work adds this,-
"The paper birch is a northern tree, being found as far north as 65°. It grows naturally on river banks and in moist, deep soil, flourishing in almost any situation, but never attaining a very large size in Massachusetts.
"Formerly, when large old trees of this species were more com- mon, the bark was used in the manner described by Michaux, being placed beneath the shingles. Many old buildings in the back part of New England are still found covered in this way. Carefully laid, it makes a covering impenetrable to rain, and a most effectual screen against heat and cold; and it is almost imperishable."
So much for bark canoes.
In 1524, Verrazzano came into New York Harbor and coasted easterly to Rhode Island. He "saw many of their boats, made of one tree, twenty feet long and four feet broad, without the aid of stone or iron or any other metal. To hollow out their boats they burn out as much of the log as is requisite and also from the prow and stern to make them float well on the sea." Proceeding up a river, they "found it formed a lake three leagues in circuit, upon which they were rowing thirty or more of their small boats from one shore to the other, filled with multitudes". Coming to the Narragansett, they "saw about twenty small boats, full of people". There, also, "they construct their boats of single logs, hollowed out with admirable skill, and sufficiently commodious to contain ten or twelve persons; their oars are short and broad at the end and are managed in rowing by force of the arms alone, with perfect security and as nimbly as they choose".
To this seasoned mariner, with all the traditions of the sea, there was something unique in the use of paddles without benefit of row- locks or tholes.
In 1584, Arthur Barlowe wrote from Roanoke, Virginia, to Raleigh that "their boats are made of one tree, either of pine or pitch trees; a wood not commonly known to our people, nor found growing in England. They have no edge tools to make them. Their manner of making their boats is thus: they burn down some great
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INDIAN CANOES
tree, or take such as are wind fallen and putting gum and rosen upon one side thereof, they set fire into it and when it hath burnt it hollow, they cut out the coal with their shells and ever where they would burn it deeper or wider they lay on gums, which burn away the timber and by this means they fashion very fine boats such as will transport twenty men. Their oars are like scoops and many times they set with long poles, as the depth serveth".
At New York, in 1609, Hudson found "two canoes, one having twelve, the other fourteen men". Later "there came eight and twenty canoes, full of men, women and children".
At Lord Baltimore's plantation in Maryland, in 1634, "it was worth the hearing, of those who understood them, to hear what admiration at our ship; calling it a canoe and wondering where so great a tree grew that made it, conceiving it to be made of one tree, as their canoes are".
In 1643, Roger Williams said, in regard to "an Indian boat or canoe, made of a pine, or oak, or chestnut tree,-I have seen a native go into the woods with his hatchet, carrying only a basket of corn with him and stones to strike fire. When he had felled his tree, being a chestnut, he made him a little house or shed of the bark of it; he puts fire and follows the burning of it with fire in the midst in many places. So he continues, burning and hewing, until he hath, within ten or twelve days finished and getting hands, launched his boat, with which afterwards he ventures out to fish in the ocean. Some of them will not carry above three or four, but some of them twenty, thirty, forty men".
What knowledge the first settlers may have had of dugout canoes, before coming to America, is a question. Canoes, hollowed from the trunks of oaks, seem to have been used by the early inhabitants of the British Isles, having been dug up in considerable numbers in England, Scotland, and Ireland. They appear to have been chiefly of two sorts,-one about ten feet long with square ends and projecting handles; the other about twenty feet long, sometimes sharp at both ends and sometimes round at the prow and square at the stern.
In recent years, a number of so-called Indian canoes have been retrieved from bogs and ponds in New England and adjacent states by Civilian Conservation Camp Workers and others. In all the examples seen by this writer lack of any burning is most apparent and the use of steel tools is plainly shown. Apparently they were all of English fashioning and seem much akin to those dug up in the British Isles. There is reasonable ground for suspicion that some specimens now in museums, labeled "Indian canoes", are of this same type.
In any event, the English appear to have very readily adopted them for use here, though they were greatly handicapped by scant forest growth and consequent lack of adequate material. So scarce were suitable trees that steps were early taken for their conservation.
At Springfield, February 14, 1638-39, it was provided that trees for making canoes might be taken by any inhabitant, on condition that
W. Mass .- I-4
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they were for the use of himself or his neighbors, but April 16, 1640, it was "ordered that no man shall fell any canoe tree that shall be within the bounds of the plantation". Here was a tract of at least twenty-five or thirty square miles, with a total adult white population of but seventeen, in which there were not available enough canoe trees so that they could be freely used. Less than one tree to a square mile would have provided a canoe for every inhabitant.
Dugout Canoe Retrieved From a Swamp
In all the existing accounts of occurrences at Springfield, there is but a single mention of birch bark canoes. In an undated letter, written about 1640, George Moxon wrote Governor Winthrop that "Mr. Pynchon lately lost a boy who too venturously went into a birchen canoe, which overturned, and he was drowned". It is improb- able that this birch canoe was indigenous. Prior to coming to Spring- field, Pynchon had been a trader on the Maine coast. There he might have acquired such a craft which could have been readily brought to Springfield in one of the shallops, continually bringing freight.
The reliance placed on these canoes is attested at Springfield. In 1638, famine threatened the towns on the Connecticut and William Pynchon was charged with not acting in the public interest in efforts to procure corn from the Indians, to relieve the situation. Being greatly handicapped by lack of transportation facilities, it was argued that in the emergency he should have seized on the canoes of his
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neighbors. Of one who refused to lend his, Pynchon said that he "entreated Mr. Moxon, living next door, to borrow it. But the owner refused to lend it, because, notwithstanding his daily need of it, the Indians would not promise to bring it up again till fishing time, which was about six weeks after. Then I was charged with neglect of duty because I did not press the canoe for the Indian's use. Truly, the king might as legaly exact a loan ex officio of his subjects, by a dis- tress on men's proprieties (because he pleads a great necessity ) as to press a canoe without a legal order".
In May, 1645, at Springfield, it was ordered "that whosoever shall take away any man's canoe without his leave, shall be liable to the fine of 2s-6d".
At Newport, R. I., in 1640, a treaty with the sachem, Miantonomo, included the provision "that no Indian shall take any canoe from the English and the like not to be done to them".
L-
CHAPTER VI
Indian Aliment
B Y THE conveyance with which William Pynchon on July 15, 1636 acquired from the Indians, the land which became Springfield, in Massachusetts, it was provided that "the said Indians shall have and enjoy all that cottinackeesh, or ground that is now planted and have liberty to take fish and deer, ground nuts, walnuts, acorns and sasachiminesh, or a kind of pease. and if any of our cattle spoil their corn, to pay as it is worth".
These reservations are of considerable interest as they throw quite a bit of light on the food sources of the natives.
Cottinackeesh is a compound word composed of kitkan, "plan- tation", and auk, "land", with a plural ending, thus meaning "plantation grounds". Presumably the natives used these tracts for growing, not only the corn, for the welfare of which they were so solicitous, but also tobacco, beans, squashes and pumpkins.
Roger Williams, in 1643, said of the Indians, that "askutasquash are their vine apples, which the English from them call squashes, about the bigness of apples and of several colors: a sweet, light, wholesome refreshing".
Lionel Gardiner sent from Gardiner's Island to John Winthrop, at New London on February 28, 1652-53, "a variety of seed which came from the Mohawks, which is a kind of melons, but far excelleth all others. They are as good as wheat flour to thicken milk and sweet as sugar, and baked they are most excellent, having no shell. You may keep them as long as any pumpkins".
In an essay submitted to the Royal Society in 1662, John Win- throp said that "the Indians and some English, at every hill of corn will plant a kind of bean called French beans or turkey beans and between the hills they plant squashes and pompions, the stalks of the corn serving instead of poles for the beans to climb up".
The berry called sasachiminesh, unfamiliar to Pynchon and which, being then immature and green in color, he likened to the garden pea, was really the cranberry. The date of Pynchon's comment was July 15, old style, the equivalent of July 26 of the present calendar, at which time cranberries are about the size of large buckshot or small green peas.
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INDIAN ALIMENT
The prefix, sasa, is a reduplicative form of see, "sour"; chi, "big"; min, "berry", and esh, a plural ending, thus meaning, "very sour, big berries". Roger Williams called cranberries, "sasemineash", which is quite similar to Pynchon's form of the word, except that it lacks the adjective, "chi", and so means merely, "very sour berries". Williams said that the cranberry was "another sharp, cooling fruit, growing in fresh waters all winter, excellent in conserve against fevers".
Every schoolboy recalls the sufferings of the Pilgrims at Ply- mouth that first winter of 1620. Deaths were constant and the living were scarce able to care for the sick and the dying or even to bury their dead. A similar experience was had by the Puritans who came to Boston ten years later.
Modern science has shown that their ills were caused by scurvy, brought on by the long sea voyage and consequent lack of succulent vegetables, with their vitamin C content.
Whatever knowledge the Pilgrims may have had as to the cause of their trouble, the Puritans at Boston most certainly understood at least its remedy. Though it was not until 1636 that John Woodhall, master in surgery, published his "Surgeon's Mate, or Military and Domestic Medicine", in which he called attention to the sterling virtues of lemon juice, yet it is apparent that even prior to that time, some knowledge was had of the remedy. Governor Winthrop's wife planned to come to Boston a year later than did her husband and profiting by his own sad experience, he especially stressed that she provide "juyce of lemons" for her voyage.
In 1795, citrus juices, as a preventative of scurvy were made a required element of diet in the British navy, and so universal did the custom become, that navy men were nicknamed "lime juicers".
On Governor Winthrop's arrival in New England in June, 1630, he ordered that Captain Pierce return to England with the ship Lyon for lemons. It was a long and cruel wait as that ship did not return to Boston until January 9, 1630-31. In the meantime, recorded Winthrop, "the people were much afflicted with scurvy and many died, but when this ship came and brought juice of lemons, many speedily recovered".
Had they but realized it, these people had at their very doors, an adequate remedy for their sore condition, for the cranberry, which grew so bounteously about them, has an equal vitamin C content with the lemon. The berry is noticeably firm when ripe and when pro- tected by snow, remains on the vine all winter, so that it was available to the pioneers in those harrowing days. Col. James Smith, who was captured by the French and Indians at Fort Duquesne in 1755 and lived for four years with the Indians said that "about the sides of the pond there grew great abundance of cranberries, which the Indians gathered upon the ice when the pond was frozen over. These berries were about as large as rifle bullets, of a bright red color, an agreeable sour, though rather too sour of themselves, but when mixed
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with sugar had a very agreeable taste". From other statements of Smith, it is obvious that maple sugar is here implied.
Though the small or European cranberry is indigenous to northern England, it is doubtful if it was known to these people from the more southerly parts of that country, who came to New England in the early days. Here, however, it was known and used by the Indians, though obviously without any understanding as to the reason for its value. Moreover, the English berry was much smaller and far less attractive in color than that of New England, so that its kinship would not have been readily apparent. Further evidence that it was not common in England is shown in the account books of John Hull, the mint-master and maker of the Pine Tree shillings. He was also a merchant in Boston and (circa 1675) made several shipments of cran- berries to London. Ten barrels were sent as a gift to King Charles II. Thus early did the English come to appreciate cranberries.
It would appear that with a better knowledge of the natural resources of their adopted country, the worst horrors of their early days in New England might have been spared these pioneers.
The value of the vitamin C content of the cranberry was undoubt- edly recognized by the Indians, though in an unscientific and unthink- ing way. Through many years of selecting and experimenting, the natives had learned just what natural resources were of value, as did the beasts and the birds. It was a generally accepted fact that. any red berry had its virtues while any blue one was questioned by the children of the forest. Much of the brawn and stamina was quite possible due to the cranberry.
The ground nut of the Indians (apios tuberosa) though quite common, is today little known. It is a member of the pea family, with a vine five to ten feet long, growing in damp places, often along the borders of marshes. In its root system are tubers, one to three inches in diameter which are sweet and edible. They may be eaten raw, but boiled or roasted are fully equal to the white potato. If we did not have the potato, the ground nut probably would have long since been developed into a staple article of food. According to Winslow, the Pilgrims "were forced to live on ground nuts" during their first winter in New England. In colonial days, the Swedes on the Dela- ware ate them for want of bread.
Roger Williams said in 1643 that "the Indians have an art of drying their chestnuts and so preserve them in their barns for a dainty all the year. They also dry acorns and in case of want of corn, by much boiling, they make a good dish of them. Sometimes even in plenty of corn they eat these acorns for a novelty".
The barns here mentioned were the native storehouses, in use wherever the Indians wintered, and by the English were called "Indian barns". John Winthrop described them in 1662 as being "holes in the ground, well lined with withered grass and mats and then covered with the like and over that, covered with earth, and so it keeps very well".
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