The punk here mentioned is a fungus, which grows on the birch tree.  The Indians used to gather this in large quantities and dry it.  It was very abundant at the Touchwood Hills (whence the name) on Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Saskatchewan from the south.

The Blackfeet made buckets, cups, basins, and dishes from the lining of the buffalo’s paunch.  This was torn off in large pieces, and was stretched over a flattened willow or cherry hoop at the bottom and top.  These hoops were sometimes inside and sometimes outside the bucket or dish.  In the latter case, the hoop at the bottom was often sewed to the paunch, which came down over it, double on the outside, the needle holes being pitched with gum or tallow.  The hoop at the upper edge was also sewed to the paunch, and a rawhide bail passed under it, to carry it by.  These buckets were shaped somewhat like our wooden ones, and were of different sizes, some of them holding four or five gallons.  They were more or less flexible, and when carried in a pack, they could be flattened down like a crush hat, and so took up but little room.  If set on the ground when full, they would stand up for a while, but as they soon softened and fell down, they were usually hung up by the bail on a little tripod.  Cups were made in the same way as buckets, but on a smaller scale and without the bail.  Of course, nothing hot could be placed in these vessels.

It is doubtful if the Blackfeet ever made any pottery or basket ware.  They, however, made bowls and kettles of stone.  There is an ancient children’s song which consists of a series of questions asked an elk, and its replies to the same.  In one place, the questioner sings, “Elk, what is your bowl (or dish)?” and the elk answers, “Ok-wi-tok-so-ka,” stone bowl.  On this point, Wolf Calf, a very old man, states that in early days the Blackfeet sometimes boiled their meat in a stone bowl made out of a hard clayey rock.[1] Choosing a fragment of the right size and shape, they would pound it with another heavier rock, dealing light blows until a hollow had been made in the top.  This hollow was made deeper by pounding and grinding; and when it was deep enough, they put water in it, and set it on the fire, and the water would boil.  These pots were strong and would last a long time.  I do not remember that any other tribe of Plains Indians made such stone bowls or mortars, though, of course, they were commonly made, and in singular perfection, by the Pacific Coast tribes; and I have known of rare cases in which basalt mortars and small soapstone ollas have been found on the central plateau of the continent in southern Wyoming.  These articles, however, had no doubt been obtained by trade from Western tribes.

[Footnote 1:  See The Blackfoot Genesis, p. 141.]

Serviceable ladles and spoons were made of wood and of buffalo and mountain sheep horn.  Basins or flat dishes were sometimes made of mountain sheep horn, boiled, split, and flattened, and also of split buffalo horn, fitted and sewn together with sinew, making a flaring, saucer-shaped dish.  These were used as plates or eating dishes.  Of course, they leaked a little, for the joints were not tight.  Wooden bowls and dishes were made from knots and protuberances of trees, dug out and smoothed by fire and the knife or by the latter alone.