The bark is pieced out with regard to the danger of abrasion that would occur when the canoe is moving through obstructions in the water, or when it is rolled or hauled ashore and unloaded. If the bark is to be lapped below the waterline, the thickness of the bark of both pieces in the lap is scraped thin so a ridge will not be formed athwart the bottom; here, however, most tribes used edge-to-edge joining. If there are laps in the topsides, the exposed edge is toward the stern; if in the midlength, upward toward the gunwale; and if it is in the end the lap may be toward the bottom, because this makes it easier to sew, and because in the ends of the canoe there is less danger of serious abrasion. Many tribes used edge-to-edge joining everywhere in the topsides so that the direction of lapping was not a matter of consideration. The type of goring, whether by slash and lap or by cutting out a ~V~-shaped gore, will, of course, have much to do with the selection of the method of sewing to be used. It is to be recalled that in canoe building no needle was used in sewing the bark; the ends of the root strands were sharpened and used to thread the strand through the awl holes. Much of the topside sewing in a bark canoe was done with small strands made by splitting small roots in half and then flattening the halves by scraping. Large root strands quartered and prepared in the same manner, or the cores of these, were sometimes used in heavy sewing or lashing at the gunwale or in the ends of a canoe. As noted previously, root thongs were used well water-soaked or quite green, for they became very stiff and rather brittle as they dried out. Once in place, however, the drying did not seem to destroy their strength. Rawhide was also used for such sewing by some tribes. The sewing was done by Indian women, if their help was available, and the forms of stitching used in canoe building varied greatly. The root sewing at the ends of the canoes ranged from a simple over-and-over spiral form to elaborate and decorative styles. Long-and-short stitching in a sequence that usually followed some formal pattern was widely used. Among the patterns were such arrangements as one long, four short, and one long; or two longs, two or three shorts, and two longs; or one short, five of progressively increasing length, and then one short; or six progressively longer followed by six progressively shorter. Cross-stitching, employing the two ends of the sewing root as in the lacing of a shoe was also common. Sometimes this was combined with a straight-across double-strand pass to join the ends of the ~X~. The harness stitch, in which both ends of the sewing root were passed in opposite directions through the same holes, was often used, as was the 2-thong in-and-out lacing from each side used in northwestern canoes having plank stem-pieces.