according to his rank,--the nearer to the host, the greater
the honor.

Bows were generally made of ash wood, which grows east of the mountains
toward the Sand Hills. When for any reason they could not obtain ash, they
used the wood of the choke-cherry tree, but this had not strength nor
spring enough to be of much service. I have been told also that sometimes
they used hazle wood for bows.

Arrows were made of shoots of the sarvis berry wood, which was straight,
very heavy, and not brittle. They were smoothed and straightened by a stone
implement. The grooves were made by pushing the shafts through a rib or
other flat bone in which had been made a hole, circular except for one or
two projections on the inside. These projections worked out the groove. The
object of these grooves is said to have been to allow the blood to flow
freely. Each man marked his arrows by painting them, or by some special
combination of colored feathers. The arrow heads were of two kinds,--barbed
slender points for war, and barbless for hunting. Knives were originally
made of stone, as were also war clubs, mauls, and some of the scrapers for
fleshing and graining hides. Some of the flint knives were long, others
short. A stick was fitted to them, forming a wooden handle. The handles of
mauls and war clubs were usually made of green sticks fitted as closely as
possible into a groove made in the stone, the whole being bound together by
a covering of hide put on green, tightly fitted and strongly sewed. This,
as it shrunk in drying, bound the different parts of the implement together
in the strongest possible manner. Short, heavy spears were used, the points
being of stone or bone, barbed.

I have heard no explanation among the Blackfeet of the origin of fire. In
ancient times, it was obtained by means of fire sticks, as described
elsewhere. The starting of the spark with these sticks is said to have been
hard work. At almost their first meeting with the whites, they obtained
flints and steels, and learned how to use them.

In ancient times,--in the days of fire sticks and even later, within the
memory of men now living,--fire used to be carried from place to place in a
"fire horn." This was a buffalo horn slung by a string over the shoulder
like a powderhorn. The horn was lined with moist, rotten wood, and the open
end had a wooden stopper or plug fitted to it. On leaving camp in the
morning, the man who carried the horn took from the fire a sma