Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1890-11-07
INDIANS AS ARTISANS.

bles, corals and stones has developed
into two important industries in
Northern Michigan, says q Petoskey
(Mich.) correspondent Of the Chi.
cago Herald The Indians are the
chief workers in the basket industry
and skilled lapidarians follow the other.
Tourists who visit these regions during
the summer season buy baskets and
stones to take homo as souvenirs, and
while but little capital is invested in
either branch OF the business the ag-
gregate sales amount to q surprisingly
large figure. The baskets most popu-
lar with tourists are made of black ash.
Some Of the work displays remarkable
taste and artistic ability on tho part Of
untutored children of the forests. A few
years ago the Indians busted themselves
making baskets and boxes of birch bark,
with gayly colored porcupino quilts
yewed into the fiber. The baskets were
far from beautiful, but possessed an
aboriginal attrsctiveness that pleased
those who never saw such work. Sweet
grass had great run rs q material for
baskets and boxes, the fragrance of the
grass remaining for years. But the
rldo birch bark boxes and the sweet
smelling grass baskets have given place
to the far more attractive black ash
work.
Tho ash tree, after It has been cut, is
sawed into pieces four or five feet long,
while still green, and then chopped into
bolts three or four inches by an inch
thick, the grain running with the mar
row edge. The bolt is laid on the top
of stump and vigorously pounded with
wooden maui in the hands Of lusty
Indian. The wood, under this process,
strips off into shavings the length Of
the bolt and as thick as the grain.
Each years growth Of the tree repro
scnts shaving and the slower the
growth of the tree the thinner the strip.
With O sharp knife the Indian smootns
OF one sido of the strips and soalss
them in water until they have become
pliable. Then they are woven into
baskets of every Imaginable shape and
size, into mammoth hampers, little
boxes, shopping bags and work-boxes,
both useful and ornamental. The
squaws and girls are the chief workers
in this industry, even chopping down
the trees and preparing the wood for
tho various manipulations while the
braves and bucks sit around looking on
or quietly smoking.
The work is done largely during the
winter months, and instead Of keeping
the stuff until the summer season
opens, when visitors are numerous and
the demand for that kind of work is
brisk, the squaws carry the baskets to
town and dispose Of them to the best
advantage, trading them for groceries,
lYxy nd
worry little from the sale compared with
what tho merchant gets for the goods.
Tho polishing OF corals and pebbles
gives employment to a score or more
hands in this city, and the volume of
business transacted aggregates $4,000
or $4,000. Cornls are washed up on the
beach of Little Traverse bay by waves
and picked up by boys sent out for the
purpose. When polished the corals have
"gray black appearance, not very ut
tractive and with no lively colors, but
odd, and nice for pins and paper-weights.
At no other point along the shores Of
tho lake are they to be found, and five
miles away on either side scarcely o
specimen can be secured on the sand.
There are only two or three other places
in tho country where they are found,
but in no place are they so numerous or
so large as here. The supply Of corals,
however, is beginning to run short. A
few years ago boy could pick up enough
of the very choicest corals in an hour to
keep the machinery running for days.
Tourists have been 80 Industrious in
picking up and taking homo the rough
stones that now choice specimens are
scarce. The fact that the corals would
take flno polish was discovered about
ton years ago by John L. Shaw, a
wealthy capitalist Of Grand Rapids, who
was sitting on tho steps Of tho only
hotel that existed at this place then.
In nm idlo moment he rubbed one Of the
corals on pioce of railroad iron to see
what tho effect would be. Tho result
was most gratifying, and young man
sitting near him appropriated the idea
and started shop for cutting and pol
iaiing tho stones. There arc now four