While the Northeast, and especially Massachusetts, may have dominated jigsaw puzzle making in the past, puzzle makers can be found anywhere today. Here, we have a Spiritwood puzzle cut in 1993 by Charles Ross, a retired North Dakota farmer. Plywood, interlocking with 7 figure pieces, one of which is a most unusual, mulit-piece figure of an indian's head along the upper right border. This figure combines 4 special cutting techniques defined in my article, "Earliest Use of Special Techniques for Making Adult Jigsaw Puzzles": figure piece-appropriate, figure piece-complex, irregular edge-figure and dropout-figure. Very few makers, past and present, use such an advanced combination of special cutting technique in their puzzles.
The picture is featured on the cover of a book by Russell Freedman titled Buffalo Hunt which examines the importance of the buffalo in the lore and day-to-day life of the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and describes hunting methods and the uses found for each part of the animal that could not be eaten. Mr. Freedman lives in New York City and travels widely to research his books. Whether he painted the cover picture which was used for this puzzle is questionable.