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Indian Handcrafts
How to Craft Dozens of Practical Objects
Using Traditional Indian Techniques
by C. Keith Wilbur

      For thousands of years the Indians of the Northeast lived by their wits, fabricating the articles needed for daily life from materials they found in nature. Now you can reproduce these authentic objects by following the clear, step-by-step instructions in this richly illustrated book.

      Indian Handcrafts explains how each object evolved, how it was used, and what tools and materials you need to re-create it. C. Keith Wilbur carefully researched the methods described and actually made and tested each of the handcrafts. All the necessary supplies, he says, can be found free of charge, in the great outdoors - just as the Indians did.

      You can learn how to:
- Shape a duck decoy from dried cat-o-nine tails.
- Bend and lash green saplings to form a wigwam frame.
- Use porcupine quills to apply natural dyes to your handmade moccasins
- Build a rubbing stick so you can start campfires "from scratch" and much more.

      This intriguing book preserves authentic Indian handcraft methods and serves as an enduring tribute to Native American ingenuity and craftsmanship.

      A work of art - hundreds of quality pen-and-ink drawings and a hand-lettered text clearly show the execution of over 40 woodland crafts, from dugout canoes to wigwams to fish spears to snowshoes to toys to Maple syruping. A good first craft book because of its broad scope. Large-format paperback, 140 pages.

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Craft Manual of Yukon Tlingit
A Craft Video on North American Indian Footwear DVD
by George White

      This book gives a short history with general information and instructions for making dolls, snowshoes, solo and tandem moose (or deer, elk) hide boats, woodcarvings, bonework, moccasins and a clever deadfall trap.Paperback, 56 pages.

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Ojibwa Crafts
by Carrie Lyford

      In the first half of the twentieth century, the Ojibwa (Chippewa) people of the western Great Lakes region still retainted many of their in traditional tribal ways of life - ways of life which included a wealth of ingenious and clever crafts based upon their understandings and use of natural local materials. With few tools but a long history, skilled artisans created the everyday articles needed for shelter, food preperations, clothing, and ceremonials; they also found time to make decorative items for exchange at trading posts or for sale to tourists who passed through their lands.

      Carrie Lyford observed the tribes of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and recorded this story of their material culture artifacts. This book, first published in 1943, inlcudes maple sugar making, wild rice harvesting, birch bark canoes and baskets, quill and beadwork (dozens of designs), hide tanning, native dyes and more.

      Photographs are amplifies by verbal descriptions of the manufacture and use of the objects. Of particular interest to many scholars are the Ojibwa names given for most of these crafts. A splendid bibliography is appended as a guide for further study.Paperback, 216 pages.