Tools of the Puyallup & Nisqually:

The Puyallup & Nisqually tribes used available materials around them to make tools for every day needs of hunting or catching food, preparing the food, cooking, making dugout canoes, as well as other tools. They created special tools to help them do their work. Most of their tools were made during the long rainy months of winter. The men carved flat pieces of bone or wood to make shedders which were used to scrape thin strips of bark from cedar trees. They made bows out of the best pieces of wood and sharpened arrows from ground stones or shells until they were as sharp as knives. Flat stones were polished to a thin edge. Carved handles of wood or animal bone were fastened to the stone with strips of leather. This tool was called an “adze.” It was used to scrape and smooth the large planks for their houses. Salmon clubs and fishing hooks were made of bone and digging sticks were made of elkhorn. They were carved into animal figures. The designs on them told a story about the powers and spirits important to each man’s life. Each man was proud of the tools he made for his family. He wanted his tools to show what a fine worker he was.