"No modern Indian of any kind," said George, "uses an atlatl."
"Most of them wouldn't even know what it was," Sidney agreed. "They
haven't been used for hundreds of years; the only place you see them is
in museums."
An atlatl was the weapon which had replaced the stone axe in the stone
age. It was a throwing stick consisting of two parts. One was the lance,
a feathered shaft up to four feet long, tipped with a stone point. The
two-foot flat stick that went with this had a slot in one end and two
rawhide finger loops. The lance end was fitted in the slot to be thrown.
The stick was an extension of the human arm to give the lance greater
force. Some atlatls had small charm stones attached to them to give
them extra weight and magic.
Charm stones could be seen fastened to a few of the atlatls being held
by the Indians now standing like bronze statues regarding them.