Drilling was done by means of a bone awl made from a splinter of the shank-bone of a deer; the blade of this awl had a roughly triangular cross-section. The splinter was held in a wooden handle or in a rawhide grip. The awl was used not only to make holes in wood, but also as the punch to make holes for "sewing" in bark. Large holes were drilled by means of the bow-drill, in which a stone drill-point was rotated back and forth by the bow-string. Some Indians rotated the drill between the palms of their hands, or by a string with handgrips at each end. The top of the drill was steadied by a block held in the worker's mouth, the top rotating in a hole in the underside of the block. With the bow-drill, however, the block was held in one hand. [Illustration: Figure 12 Bow Drill] Peeling the bark from roots and splitting them was done by use of the thumbnail, a stone knife, or a clamshell. Biting was also resorted to. The end of a root could also be split by first pounding it with a stone, using a log or another stone as an anvil, to open the fibers at one end. Splitting a root was usually done by biting to start the split. Once this was done, half was held in the mouth and the other half between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. Then the two parts were gradually pulled apart with the right hand, while the thumbnail of the left was used to guide the split. If the split showed a tendency to "run off," bending the root away from the direction of the run while continuing the splitting usually served to change the course of the split. If a root was hard to split, the stone knife came into play instead of the thumbnail. When the split reached arm's length, the ends were shifted in hand and mouth and the operation continued. The use of hot water as an aid in bending wood was well known to some tribal groups before the white man came. Water was placed in a wooden trough, or in a bark basin, and heated to boiling by dropping hot stones into it. Some Indians boiled water in bark utensils by placing them over a fire of hot coals surrounded by stones and earth so that the flame could not reach the highly inflammable bark above the water-level in the dish. Stones were lifted from the fire with wooden tongs made of green saplings bent into a ~U~-shape or made into a spoon-like outline. A straight stick and a forked one, used together, formed another type of tongs. The straight stick was placed in and under the fork; then, by forcing the latter under the stone and bringing the end of the straight stick hard against its top, the stone was held firmly, pincer-fashion.