Not once in a lifetime are we
thrown entirely on our own resources. Then we improvise bunglingly a
makeshift.
The Woods Indian possesses his knife and his light axe. Nails, planes,
glue, chisels, vices, cord, rope, and all the rest of it he has to do
without. But he never improvises makeshifts. No matter what the
exigency or how complicated the demand, his experience answers with
accuracy.
Utensils and tools he knows exactly where to find. His job is neat and
workmanlike, whether it is a bark receptacle--water-tight or not--a
pair of snow-shoes, the repairing of a badly-smashed canoe, the
construction of a shelter, or the fashioning of a paddle. About noon
one day Tawabinisay broke his axe-helve square off. This to us would
have been a serious affair. Probably we should, left to ourselves, have
stuck in some sort of a rough straight sapling handle which would have
answered well enough until we could have bought another. By the time we
had cooked dinner that Indian had fashioned another helve. We compared
it with the store article. It was as well shaped, as smooth, as nicely
balanced. In fact, as we laid the new and the old side by side, we
could not have selected, from any evidence of the workmanship, which
had been made by machine and which by hand. Tawabinisay then burned out
the wood from the axe, retempered the steel, set the new helve, and
wedged it neatly with ironwood wedges. The whole affair, including the
cutting of the timber, consumed perhaps half an hour.
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