Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1918-07-18

terest in Indians. In New York state
where I lived, the Indian reservation
was near, and the Indians often went
past our house on their way to the
village They made all kinds of rush
baskets and mats that they sold. They
were peaceable and good natured and
the children were not afraid of them.
When we came west we found that
most of the women and children were
afraid of the Indians and there were
all sorts of stories told of children
being stolen and carried away The
truth was, the Indians had more chill
dren of their own than they could
we'll taken care of.
In the fall of the year they would
come down the Baraboo river in ca
noes and dug-outs about October,
when the fur on mink and rats was
prime. They were on their way to the
big marsh between Baraboo and Port
age to trap. An old Indian told me
that the big marsh was the best trap
ping ground for rats in the state. In
the late fall their houses would make
he marsh look like a hay field. I have
watched the Indians take the rats and
mink out of their traps and skin them,
turning the hides inside out and
stretching them on willows or alder
twigs. They used to kill great many
rats in the winter time The musk
rat in building his house always has a
bench or sleeping porch inside on the
south side and it is made thinner there
so that they can get the warmth from
the sun when it shines. The Indians
would take a sharp pointed piece of
dry hickory or ash or an Indian spear
and thrust it through the south side
of the house and would very often get
a rat.
I have seen twenty or thirty canoes
in a string pass through Baraboo,
down the river. I never saw many
going back up the river. After trap
ping on the marsh they would go down
into the Wisconsin, paddle up to Port
age and go down the Fox river where
large numbers camped for the winter,
and in the spring would hunt west to
the Black and Mississippi rivers and
come back east in the fall. Most of the
canoes were birch barks, some of them
were dug-outs. The dug-outs were
generally made from a Eastwood log
IA to Is feet long. It is a very long
and careful job to make a good dug
out. They cut out the center of the
log first and shape it afterward, using
hatchets, chisels and fire; the fire so
that the wood will take the pitch, and
to prevent checking. The pitch was
made by taking the sap from pine
trees and boiling it with grease. The
buck Indians always made the dug
outs, but the squaws made most of the
birch barks Some of them showed
wonderful dexterity in fashioning the
canoes as they were made without the
use of a piece of metal of any kind
and with the ~crudest tools. The ca
noes that I have seen made were fas-
tened together with withes made from
the small roots of a red cedar tree or
with hickory bark.
Required Skill to Make Canoes.
It requires a great amount of skill
and patience to make a canoe that will
stand the strain of load, be carried
or dragged over portages and not leak.
They must be perfectly dry for they
put their robes and papooses in the
bottom of the canoe and sleep in them
when travelling; in these 20 or 80 boats
that came down the river. | don't be-
lieve there was food enough to last
over two days. How different from
some civilized people now who want
to lay by enough so that their children
and grandchildren will never suffer
want. They did not have to think OF
tomorrow for at that time the woods
were full of game and the rivers and
lakes were full Of fish.
AS soon as camp-ground was
found the squaws would put up the
tents, build the fires and the bucks
would hustle for food. In those times
they would make two kinds of tents
or wigwams, one with long poles that
they carried with them, and the other,
a low tent made of green poles that
they cut on or near their camp
ground. The possessor of long pole
tent was considered "some Indian" In
travelling they carried four poles to a
tent, three of them fastened together
near the small end or top and the
fourth one would have the tent or sail
cloth fastened to the pole about three
feet below the top. They would put
up the three poles spread about ten
feet at the bottom, then they would
raise the tent pole, and taking hold of
the bottom end of the cloth they would
u