Section 2 Instruments for Drawing
Drawings upon small slabs of wood, found among the Ojibwa, were made with a piece of red-hot wire or thin iron rod hammered to a point. Such figures are blackened by being burned in.
When in haste or when better materials are not at hand, the Hidatsa sometimes drew upon a piece of wood or the shoulder-blade of a buffalo with a piece of charcoal from the fire or with a piece of red chalk or red ocher, with which nearly every warrior is at all times supplied.
Mr. A. W. Howitt, in Manuscript Notes on Australian Pictographs, says:
Not having any process such as is used by some of the savage tribes to soften skins, the harshness of these rugs is remedied by marking upon them lines and patterns, which being partly cut through the skin give to it a certain amount of suppleness. In former times, before the white man enabled the black fellow to supplement his meager stock of implements with those of civilization, a Kumai made use of the sharp edge of a mussel shell (unio) to cut these patterns. At the present time the sharpened edge of the bowl of a metal spoon is used, partly because it forms a convenient instrument, partly, perhaps, because its bowl bears a resemblance in shape to the familiar ancestral tool.