For thousands of years, Natives Americans
across North America used cattails, other grasses, and rushes
for items of everyday use. One of the most ingenious uses of cattail,
bulrush and the tule plant was making floating decoys to lure
waterfowl to roosting areas to be bow-hunted, netted, or snared.
Geese and other migratory birds, passenger pigeon, cormorant,
swan, and as well as turkey, grouse, partridge were important
game birds to Native Americans.
In New England, the Nipmuc (which
means 'fresh water people') have traditional territory in land-locked
areas, away from the seacoast. Non-coastal, interior woodland
groups set up their base camps and villages around rich lake sides,
ponds and rivers that attracted ducks and other game.
Floating duck decoys were an essential
hunting tool to lure birds to within reach of the bow and arrow,
spear, or net. Duck decoys were constructed from reeds by Native
Americans that lived during the Archaic period (2,000 years ago)
west of the Colorado Plateau. Archaeolgists working in Nevada
found nearly a dozen ancient duck decoys cached in Lovelock Cave,
a large cave that opens up onto fossil Lake Lahontan.
Fishhooks,
nets, and hooks on setlines were found stored in the cave alongside
the duck decoys. The people that lived here relied on the resources
of a shallow, fluctuating lake. Because so many of the objects
from the cave focus on lacustrine subsistence, archaeologists
infer the climate would have been cooler and more moist than today.
Decoys from Lovelock Cave were made from
tule reed, a plant species related to bulrush. There are many
varieties of bulrush, a round hollow, tall reed which grows around
wetlands across North America. Unfortunately, some more resilient
European introduced plants like phragmities reed and purple loosestrife
have squeezed out many colonies of indigenous plants like bulrush.
Similar floating decoys were undoubtedly
made by Native Americans in the East. Today, Cree Indians around
the northern Great Lakes make standing goose decoys from flexible
tamarack sticks. Chippewa Indians make floating toy decoys, only
a few inches in length, from single cattail leaves for their children.
The decoy's Head:
1.
Use soaked, previously dried cattail leaves. To begin making the decoy's head, cut about 25 in.
from the base of 3 or 4 leaf stalks (10-15 individual leaves).
Putting them together they should make a short bundle about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
2.
Using string, twine, or raffia, begin tightly wrapping up, starting about 12 inches from the top of
the bundled stalks. Starting your lashing roughly in the middle of the bundle, wrap over the
beginning of the string. (When your done you will have a foot long 'tail' of loose untied
leaves hanging from your neck.
These ends will later be incorporated into the bottom of the decoy's body.)
3.
Bend the bundle of cattails to an angle of 90-120o,
wrap the string around the bend, in a figure-eight, to hold the
angle of the cattails. Tie the string temporarily.
4.
Using 1/3 of the leaves from the 'beak', fold them over the binding
to fill out the back of the head. Hold the cattails in place with
your hand for now.
5.
Use another 1/3 of the cattail leaves to fill out the 'beak',
fold the leaves in half and tuck them under the leaves for the
forehead. Using the string, wrap around the folded-over leaves
of the head and forehead and tie off the string.
6.
Use a single full-length cattail leaf and begin wrapping the beak,
starting at its tip. Wrap over the beginning end of the cattail
and keep wrapping fairly tight. Wrapping a single leaf should
cover up to the forehead of the decoy's head. Tuck the finishing
end under the lashings, or under the previous wraps of the cattail.
7.
Starting just below the chin, use another single leaf and wrap
up towards and then over the forehead of the decoy. When the top
of the head is covered in wrapping, make a figure-eight with the
cattail leaf and begin wrapping down the neck, picking up where
you left off.
8.
Finish wrapping the neck, about 6 or seven inches from the top of the head,
leaving a foot long tail of loose
cattail leaves. Secure the last wrapping leaf by tucking the end under the previous
wrap of the cattail.
The decoy's Body:
1.
Cut a large handful of individual cattail leaves to 24 inch lengths
(a bundle about 2 1/2 inches in diameter).
2.
Using a single leaf, wrap around a six inch section in middle of the bundle.
Use another leaf, wrapping over your end, if you run short with just one leaf.
Gently bend the whole bundle cattails in half, so
they form a U-shape, around the previously-wrapped neck of the decoy.
3.
The ends of the cattails should roughly come together at the end opposite the
head. Bend the loose leaves at the base of the decoy's head
at a right angle along the underside of the body bundle.
4.
First, tie a temporary lashing around the loose ends of the cattails
(as in "A"). Use a large needle and string to sew through
and around the cattails just behind the neck . Sew in a double
figure-eight pattern (as in "B", following numbers 1
to 6), sew lashing around twice if necessary .
5.
If the decoy appears to need more 'body', stuff cattail scraps
inside the bundled cattails, into the center of the decoy body
behind the neck (as in "A"). Sew through and around
the center of the decoy body in a figure-eight pattern (as in
"B", following numbers 1 to 3). Cut the temporary lashing
at the tail of the decoy (as in "C").
6.
Sew through and around the tail (as above in 4 "B",
following numbers 1 to 6). Trim the tail to shape.
Complete!
From: nativetech.org
