Chapter XXXII: Section 2: Instruments for Drawing

Drawings upon small slabs of wood, found among the Ojibwa, were made with a piece of red-hot wire or thin iron rod hammered to a point. Such figures are blackened by being burned in.

When in haste or when better materials are not at hand, the Hidatsa sometimes drew upon a piece of wood or the shoulder-blade of a buffalo with a piece of charcoal from the fire or with a piece of red chalk or red ocher, with which nearly every warrior is at all times supplied.

Mr. A. W. Howitt, in Manuscript Notes on Australian Pictographs, says:

Not having any process such as is used by some of the savage
tribes to soften skins, the harshness of these rugs is remedied by
marking upon them lines and patterns, which being partly cut through
the skin give to it a certain amount of suppleness. In former
times, before the white man enabled the black fellow to supplement
his meager stock of implements with those of civilization, a Kumai
made use of the sharp edge of a mussel shell (unio) to cut these
patterns. At the present time the sharpened edge of the bowl
of a metal spoon is used, partly because it forms a convenient
instrument, partly, perhaps, because its bowl bears a resemblance in
shape to the familiar ancestral tool.