"The women manifest much ingenuity and taste with porcupine quills"

The women manifest much ingenuity and taste, in the work which they execute, with porcupine quills. The colour of these quills is various, beautiful and durable; and the art of dying them, is practised only by females. To colour black, they make use of a chocolate coloured stone, which they burn, and pound fine, and put into a vessel, with the bark of the hazel-nut tree. The vessel is then filled with water, and into it the quills are put, and the vessel is placed over a small fire, where the liquor in it is permitted to simmer, for two or three hours. The quills are then taken out, and put on a board, to dry, before a gentle fire. After they have been dried and rubbed over with bear's oil, they become of a beautiful shining black, and are fit for use. To dye red or yellow, they make use of certain roots, and the moss which they find, on a species of the fir tree. These are put, together with the quills, into a vessel, filled with water, made acid, by boiling currants or gooseberries, &c. in it. The vessel is then covered tight, and the liquid is made to simmer over the fire, for three or four hours, after which the quills are taken out and dried, and are fit for use. Feathers, they also dye in a similar manner, and these colours never fade.