Chippewa Birch Bark Makuks, Dishes and Trays: Warmed Bark Folded and Sewn with Split Roots (Densmore, 1928)

"Birch bark can be unrolled only by exposing it to the heat of a fire. When heated it becomes pliable, and retains any form in which it is placed when thus softened."

Pick bark of the right thickness: heavy for buckets and large makuks, thinner for dishes. Warm the sheet at the fire until it bends without cracking.

Fold the warm sheet up into a dish and fasten it with one or two stitches of split root at each end. Her common size: about 10 in. (25 cm) long and 5 in. (13 cm) deep. Ours: fold the corners in like a paper box and pierce the stitch holes with an awl. Tie dishes in bunches of ten to store.

For a finer tray cut away the spare bark at the ends, sew the overlapping edges with split roots, and finish the top with a stiff strip of bark sewn firmly in place.

Sew a box-shaped makuk with split roots. Lay a thin strip of basswood bark round the top and sew it over and over with split roots, like a canoe rim. Sew a cover with slanting sides over the top. Sizes ran from about 1 lb to 20-30 lb of maple sugar. For a bucket, cover the seams with pitch and add a handle.

From Frances Densmore, *Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians*, **44th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology** (1928), pp. 388-389 and plates (checked on the archive.org scan usesofplantsbych00dens). Other forms: berry makuks of about a quart with a fibre loop for the belt; storage makuks of 12 quarts or more with one side higher to lap over; an old round dish 9 in. across and 3 in. deep with folded sides and two rows of sweet grass at the rim. She gives no folding pattern: the fold, the awl and metric sizes are ours.