Descripción de las características generales de los deudores y del

Aware that seals and walruses use their claws to scratch breath- ing holes in sea ice and revisit those holes often, an Inuit hunter would wait by one of these air holes. When the animal came up to breathe the hunter would harpoon it, let it thrash, and then pull it to the surface and kill it with a blow from his fist. To lure the prey closer, a hunter would sometimes place a pick into the ice and whistle along the shaft to imitate the sounds a seal makes, or he would drag an ice pick or specially designed scratcher along the ice to rouse the seal’s curiosity.

See also DECOYS,DUCK.

Sources/Further Reading

Driver, Harold E. Indians of North America. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1969.

Josephy, Jr., Alvin M., ed. The Indian Heritage of America. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.

Murdoch, John. Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expe-

dition Annual Report of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology 1887–1888. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Print-

ing Office, 1892.

Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Amer-

icas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine,

1988.

camouflage (precontact) North American, Mesoamerican,

Circum-Caribbean, South American cultures

Camouflage equipment, such as headgear, clothing, and face paint, is designed to make hunters more invisible to the animals by helping them blend into the environment. Pre-Columbian American Indians used camouflage in warfare and hunting for hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans.

Indian hunters in both North and South America camou- flaged themselves with animal hides for clothing and heads as headgear. They also painted their faces. In the Amazon, hunters rubbed the fruit of the picho huayo shrub over their bodies to mask their odor, so that animals would not detect them. The Inuit of the North American Arctic built snow walls when they hunted polar bears. They would position themselves behind these white, portable walls downwind from their prey. Because it was made from hides, the day-to-day clothing of peoples of the Arctic also served to mask the fact that they were human and not deer or elk. (See also PARKAS.) Archaeologists believe

that some Shoshone people may have hunted waterfowl by placing DUCK DECOYS(see also DECOYS,DUCK) on their heads

in order to get close enough to their prey in the water to cap- ture them. Hunters of the Great Basin and California culture areas used the pigeon blind, a different sort of snare to catch birds. They built these blinds in much the same way that mod- ern hunters’ duck blinds are built today, locating them in areas where pigeons were abundant. Sometimes they built them on scaffolds. American Indian hunters waited inside the blind and grabbed pigeons as they came to rest on it.

Many military historians credit the victory of the Ameri- can colonists over British troops in the American Revolution to the lessons about camouflage and guerrilla fighting they learned from American Indians (see also MILITARY TACTICS). Armies

throughout the world today issue clothing in several earth- toned colors and irregular patterns to help break up the visual pattern of the soldier in the enemy’s vision. Face paint does the same by breaking up the symmetry of the face.

Sources/Further Reading

Driver, Harold E. Indians of North America. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1969.

Duke, James A. The Green Pharmacy. New York: St. Martins Press, 1997.

Hurst, David, Jay Miller, Richard White, Peter Nabokov, and Philip Deloria. The Native Americans. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc., 1993.

Maxwell, James A. America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage. Pleas- antville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Books, 1978.

Powell, J. W. Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to

the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1887–88. Wash-

ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1892. Weatherford, Jack. Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched

America. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991.

canals, irrigation See IRRIGATION SYSTEMS.

canals, shipping (ca. A.D. 1100) Mesoamerican cultures

The Aztec dredged canals through the chinampas, or artificial islands, on which they grew food crops and flowers. This dredging allowed canoes bearing heavy loads to pass through the waters surrounding the raised beds.

See also AGRICULTURE,RAISED BED;TRADE.

CANALS, SHIPPING 47

Inuit seal hunters scratched the ice with scrapers like these to lure their curious prey close to holes they had made in the ice.

Source/Further Reading

Josephy, Jr. Alvin M., ed. America in 1492: The World of the

Indian People Before the Arrival of Columbus. New York:

Random House, 1991.

canoes (precontact) North American Northeast and

Northwest Coast, Mesoamerican, Circum-Caribbean, South American Tropical Forest cultures

Slender, long, narrow, keelless boats with pointed ends are called canoes. They are moved through the water with paddles. The word canoe came into the English language from kenu, a word the Taino people living in the Caribbean taught Colum- bus, meaning a boat carved out of a tree. Later explorers used

canoe to describe any America Indian boat.

Northeastern peoples of North America traditionally made dug-out canoes, but by the 1500s they had begun constructing lightweight white cedar frames that were covered with birch and occasionally elm bark. These watercraft could float in as lit- tle as four inches of water and were ideal for travel in shallow rivers and streams. Because a dry, 15-foot canoe weighed only about 40 pounds, a traveler could easily carry it over a portage. Despite its weight, a relatively small canoe could hold loads of up to a ton. Canoes were built in all sizes—from small ones for a single person to large ones that could carry up to 50 pad- dlers.

The Algonkin made their canoes from bark that they stripped from birch trees early in the summer by making a per- pendicular slit along the tree trunk. This allowed the bark to be peeled off in a roll large enough to cover a canoe. After soak- ing the bark to soften it, the Indians sewed it together at the ends. Because the brown-colored inside of the bark was smoother and more waterproof than the outside, they faced it outside on the canoe when they stitched it to the gunwales, the bow, and the stern. Women did the sewing, using tamarack, spruce, ash, or jack pine roots for the lashing. Men made the canoe ribs from white cedar, steaming them to bend them to the proper shape. While the ribs were still pliable, the builders forced them into the hull. As they dried, the ribs pushed out- ward on the hull, making it rigid. Finally the canoe makers caulked the seams on the covering with hot pine, spruce, or bal- sam pitch and grease. Larger canoes often had laminated frames. (See also BOWS,LAMINATED.)

Like the Taino canoes and the first ones built by Eastern Woodlands Indians, canoes made by Northwest Coast tribes were mostly dugouts. Carved from one log, they were made in many shapes and sizes depending on whether they were used for the ocean or in the river. The largest of these canoes could hold as many as 50 people and was used to transport war par- ties. The Haida, who were known for their carpentry skills (see also CARPENTRY TECHNIQUES), excelled in canoe making. In the Arctic, where birch trees were not available, the Inuit peo-

48 CANOES

Although Indians throughout the Americas made canoes, the best known today are the birch-bark canoes of Northeast North American culture groups. A canoe that weighed about 40 pounds could easily be carried between rivers or streams. Europeans quickly adapted this mode of travel. (U.S. Bureau of Ethnography)

ple covered canoes with hides, developing a unique boat called the KAYAK.

Europeans quickly adopted canoes, which could be con- structed from materials at hand and were easily portaged. French fur traders, who immediately saw the benefits of canoe travel, began the first factory at Trois-Rivières, Quebec, in about 1750. American Indians designed canoes so elegantly that the unique style of the boat remains basically unchanged today, except for the materials used to construct it.

See also KAYAKS.

Sources/Further Reading

Adney, Tappan, and Howard I. Chapelle. Bark Canoes and Skin

Boats of North America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1993.

Flexner, Stuart Berg. I Hear America Talking: An Illustrated His-

tory of American Words and Phrases. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1976.

Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Nature Bulletin No.

463 A. Nov. 1970.

Josephy, Jr. Alvin M. The Indian Heritage of America. Rev. ed.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Maxwell, James A. America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage. Pleas- antville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Books, 1978.

Oswalt, Wendell. Eskimos and Explorers. Novato, Calif.: Chan- dler & Sharp Publishers, 1979.

“caramel” corn (precontact) North American Northeast

cultures

American Indians living in what is now New England dipped popped POPCORNand PEANUTSinto MAPLE SYRUPto make a

snack food similar to Cracker Jack. The Chippewa (Anishnabe) and other tribes of the present-day Great Lakes region made a similar product. Anthropologists believe that, like PEMMICAN,

some was saved for the winters. In case the weather got too bad or game became scarce Indian people could rely on the “caramel” CORNto sustain them until conditions improved.

The corn provided bulk, and the maple syrup provided a source of energy and calories. Corn and maple syrup in this form could be stored all winter without losing any of its nutritional value.

Sources/Further Reading

Davis, Emily C. Ancient Americans. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1975.

Porter, C. Fayne. The Battle of the 1,000 Slain; and Other Sto-

ries Selected from Our Indian Heritage. New York: Scholas-

tic Book Service, 1964.

Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Amer-

icas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine,

1988.

cardiac medications See DOGBANE;FOXGLOVE;HEMP,

AMERICAN;WAHOO.

cariole sleds See SLEDS,CARIOLE.

carpentry techniques (ca. 3000 B.C.) South American

Tropical Forest, North American Northwest Coast, Mesoamerican cultures

Indians throughout North, Meso-, and South America found many innovative ways to construct homes of wood. For exam- ple, indigenous builders in the Amazon jungles of South Amer- ica used cashew wood for home construction because it repelled termites and other damaging insects (see INSECT REPELLENTS).

They joined the wood together with vines that, when dry, cre- ated a stronger bond than nails and lasted up to 20 years, with- standing the humidity of the tropics.

Northwest Pacific Coast tribes of North America are noted for their beautiful homes and the craftsmanship that went into the construction of these dwellings. Their building material of choice was red cedar, which modern builders use for siding and shingles. Western red cedar (Thuja), with its tiny scale-like evergreen leaves and drooping branches that resemble ferns, are not true cedars. Although European colonists called these trees cedars, true cedars have spiny needles and are native to the Mediterranean and Himalayan regions of the world. Like true cedar wood, that of the western red cedar trees is aromatic. It contains a natural resin called thujic acid that repels termites, moths, insects, and vermin. The thujic acid also makes red cedar relatively water-resistant, a useful characteristic in one of the wettest regions on the earth, with a rainfall of 80 inches a year.

American Indian builders of the Northwest Coast were well aware of the insect- and water-repelling properties of this wood, as well as its superior insulating properties compared to other available wood and its resistance to warping. Cedar was used as the basis of a sophisticated architecture that housed an estimated 75,000 indigenous people living from what is now the Alaskan Panhandle to southern Oregon. All the tribes of the region constructed huge plank-covered post-and-beam houses of varying shapes and designs. They sometimes felled these huge trees by making a large hole in the side of the tree and setting a slow fire in it so that the trunk would eventually burn through and the tree would fall. They split the trunk into planks with wooden wedges. (See also TOOLS.)

The Haida, who lived in the northern Queen Charlotte Is- lands off the western coast of what is now Canada, perfected the art of plank-home building. They were masters of mortise and tenon joining. A mortise is a hole drilled into wood that is prepared to accept a projection (a tenon) that has been carved into another piece of wood. Haida houses had six roof beams. These were not supported on central posts but rested instead on angled gable plates, with slotted corner posts and three beams that were flattened on the lower side. The result was an inte- rior uncluttered by supports. Vertical wall planks fitted into slots on both of the gable plates that ran above the ground to form the mortise and tenon joint. Sometimes the Haida, whose homes had cellars, shaped the wood by steaming and bending it so that it would overlap and produce weather-tight walls.

Roofs were gabled and covered with planks that were fastened so that they could be moved to form skylights that would let in fresh air and light or let out smoke. Tlingit and Tsimshian homes were of similar construction.

In 1792 French explorer Etienne Marchand was impressed by the Haida houses he saw on his journeys. He wrote: “Is not our astonishment increased when we consider the progress these people have made in architecture? What instinct, or, rather, what genius, it has required to conceive and execute solidly . . . these edifices, those heavy frames of buildings of fifty feet in extent by eleven in elevation.”

In order to construct these buildings, the Haida and other Northwest tribes invented a number of specialized woodwork- ing tools. The carpentry of the indigenous builders of the Northwest is remarkable because, for the most part, they did not make their tools of metal. Some non-Indian anthropolo- gists could not believe that this was possible and claimed that building in the Northwest only flourished after Europeans in-

troduced metal tools. An experiment conducted by archaeolo- gists at Canada’s Museum of Man in the 1970s, however, sug- gests that it was possible for the Indians to build their magnificent structures with clamshell-edged adzes and chisels, bone awls and bores, and hardwood or sheephorn wedges.

Hafted beaver-tooth and mussel-shell knives as well as stone drills have been found in Washington State at the Ozette site, which has been dated to A.D. 800. Here some metal tools

of later date have been found that were in use in pre-Columbian times. Archaeologists believe they might have been crafted from the iron in meteors. (See IRONWORKING.)

When British navy captain James Cook sailed into Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, he was the first European the Nootka had seen. Yet when his men examined a Nootka car- penter’s tool box, they found a maul, metal chisels, wedges, adzes, simple drills, sandstone grindstones for finishing, and sharkskin, which served as fine sand paper. (See also TOOL KITS;TOOLS.)

50 CARPENTRY TECHNIQUES

Haida builders of the North American Northwest constructed their homes and community buildings from cedar, a material that remains popular with homebuilders today.This Haida house in Skedans Village on one of the Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C., was photographed in 1878. (National Archives of Canada/PA-038148/Geological Survey of Canada Collection)

Because the Northwest’s humid climate eventually rots the wood, remains of ancient houses are scarce. Archaeologists in the Skeena River Canyon on what is now British Columbia’s mainland have found evidence of villages composed of rectan- gular wooden houses that are nearly 5,000 years old. Similar finds have been uncovered on Prince Rupert Island in British Columbia.

In addition to homes, carpenters of the Northwest con- structed CANOESfrom red or yellow cedar. Red cedar was used

for arrow shafts and bentwood BOXES because of its fine,

straight grain. Bowls and dishes were made from red alder, which does not contain thujic acid like cedar; nor does it split as easily. Boxes were made of white cedar. Clubs, bows, har- poon shafts (see also HARPOONS) and canoe paddles were made

from Pacific yew, which is extremely strong.

See also ARCHITECTS;AXES,COPPER;INSULATION,HOME; STONEMASONRY TECHNIQUES.

Sources/Further Reading

Josephy Jr., Alvin M., ed. America in 1492: The World of the

Indian People Before the Arrival of Columbus. New York:

Random House, 1991.

Nabokov, Peter and Robert Easton. Native American Architec-

ture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Oregon State University. “False Cedars.” URL: http://www.orst.edu/instruct/for241/con/cedrgen.html. Downloaded on January 12, 1999.

Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Amer-

icas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine,

1988.

cascara sagrada (Rhanimus purshiana) (precontact) North American0 Northwest Coast, Plateau, and California cultures

Cascara sagrada is one of the most common ingredients in over- the-counter laxatives today. Centuries ago, Pacific Coast Indi- ans discovered the laxative properties of its shrub, which grows from California to British Columbia. Brewed into a tea, cascara sagrada was used by the Kutenai people who lived in the Plateau region, the Karok who lived on the California coast, and other tribes. This herbal laxative works when glycosides contained in the bark of the plant are acted on by bacteria nat- urally present in the colon. The result is increased peristalsis, or intestinal contractions. Its gentleness made it an effective treatment for both children and the elderly.

The Spaniards called the plant cascara sagrada, or the “sa- cred bark,” perhaps because, despite the existence of some cathartics in the Old World, cascara sagrada was much milder and created almost no discomfort to the user. Although it is very effective, cascara sagrada is also very bitter, so bitter that it is sometimes used today as a deterrent to thumb-sucking in children. In order to tolerate the laxative, Native people mixed it with a sweetener. After contact, Indians added CHOCOLATE

to mixtures containing this laxative, predating modern choco- late-flavored laxatives by many years. Since 1878 cascara

sagrada has become one of the most widely used laxatives in the world.

Sources/Further Reading

Moerman, Dan. Native American Ethnobotany Database: Food,

Drugs, Dyes and Fibers of Native North American Peoples.

URL: http://www.umd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/herb. Down- loaded on February 2, 1998.

Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Amer-

icas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine,

1988.

cashews (Anacardium occidentale) (precontact) Mesoamerican, South American Tropical Forest, Circum- Caribbean cultures

The cashew tree is native to Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and the West Indies. Requiring less water than other nut trees, cashews pro- duce nuts that when shelled, roasted, and salted are popular throughout the world. Indigenous people used them not only as food but also as medicine for hundreds of years. American Indians in the Amazon Basin used cashew wood to construct their homes because it repelled insects. (See also CARPENTRY TECHNIQUES;INSECT REPELLENTS.)

Europeans did not encounter the tall cashew trees, with their thick trunks and twisted branches, until 1558, when the Portuguese saw them in what is now Brazil. There the Cuna In-