WEAPONS, ARMOUR, IMPLEMENTS, AND TRANSPORTATION
[Illustration: MODERN IRON ARROW-HEADS OF THE OMAHAS
War Arrow
War Arrow
Hunting Arrow
]
The Amerinds were practically all in the so-called Stone Age of
culture; that is, they were unacquainted with the _common use_ of
metals. Some tribes worked silver, gold, and copper, to a limited
extent and in an ornamental way, and a high authority asserts that the
Eskimo have known iron for nine hundred years. Those Eskimo who came
in contact with the Northmen on the North-east coasts very likely saw
specimens of manufactured iron, and possessed some, nearly a thousand
years ago, but it was a bare acquaintance, and this and the limited
working of the other metals do not affect the general statement that
the Amerinds were practically a Stone-Age people. Even the Maya, with
all their varied skill and knowledge superior to any other Amerinds,
still used stone tools for carving in stone. They had no way of
sufficiently hardening the metals they could secure and their stone
tools were far more serviceable. So the tools, weapons, and implements
throughout the continent were chiefly wood, bone, and stone, with a
few exceptions in Mexico, Central America, and the Mississippi valley.
In the last region there was some working of copper obtained from the
rich deposits of native metal in northern Michigan,[218] but the main
thing they could do with it was to beat and grind it into shape with
stones. Arrow-heads, spear-heads, chisels, and knife-blades of copper
have been found in the Mississippi and Atlantic regions, but there
is no certainty that all of them were made by the Amerinds.[219] The
Spaniards and other Europeans were speedily engaged in a considerable
traffic with the Amerinds in which copper was an important medium
of exchange. Large quantities were therefore early brought into the
country from Europe, and we do not always know in what form. It is
certain that the traders would try to give it the most attractive
shape, and if arrow-heads were found to be good, it would not take long
to manufacture them. This is not to say that the Amerind could not have
made the implements or copper articles thus far found, but only to
question whether he did make all of them.
[Illustration: FORMS OF THE BOW]
The chief weapon of all Amerinds was the bow and arrow.[220] The bow
was made in a number of ways and of various kinds of wood, and of horn,
reinforced as a rule by a backing of sinew. The arrow-shaft was most
frequently of service-berry wood when it could be had, and also of reed
with a tip of some solid wood. The heads were of chipped stone, or
bone, or latterly of bottle-glass, or often, for small-bird shooting,
without any head whatever. A few heads were of copper, and in modern
times hoop iron is used. Amongst all the Amerind bows that I have ever
seen, one made from the horns of a mountain sheep, with a portion of
the skull as the central part, was the finest and most graceful. It was
exactly the shape of the typical bow wielded by the little god Cupid,
and I have always regretted that I did not purchase it at the time, for
I have never seen one since. I saw it in southern Utah in 1875.[221]
I have sometimes thought that the bow and arrow were a development from
the primitive fire-drill, through the bow-drill and spear. Some day by
accident or design perhaps the drill stick sprung from the tightened
string, the idea of substituting the spear for the drill stick was
suggested, and the greatest invention in its effect on humanity man has
yet seen was born.
[Illustration: PAI UTE PALM-DRILL
Drawn by the author from a specimen obtained by him in Arizona,
1875. Lower part of shaft of greasewood about 5 in. long and ⅜ in.
diameter. Hearth of cedar (Juniper). Upper part of drill shaft is
omitted.
]
There are three or four forms of fire-drill, but the palm-drill—that
is, the kind that was rotated between the palms of the hands—was the
earliest, most widespread, and most compact and portable of all. It
consisted of a shaft of wood, or reed with a piece of some harder
wood attached to it; or, where the hard wood was not long enough, it
was spliced on to another piece of wood. The illustration above shows
a drill and hearth I obtained from the Pai Utes of Arizona in 1875.
These Amerinds were using such drills for fire-making at that lime.
The other portion of the apparatus, the hearth, is made of cedar, or
any soft and suitable wood. It has cavities cut into it to receive the
rounded, blunt end of the shaft, and on the sides of these cavities a
little notch is cut to allow the air to get at the superheated wood
dust and to permit the dust to be quickly thrust into the tinder which
is placed beside and beneath the hearth. This hearth, which is an inch
or so in width and about a quarter of an inch thick, is held securely
down by the foot or knee, and the drill stick rapidly revolved back
and forth in an upright position, with the lower end in one of the
cavities. The revolving motion is secured by the palms of the hands,
which are allowed to slide down the shaft to gain downward pressure,
each time being brought quickly back to the top for a repetition of
the motion, so that it is practically continuous. A pinch of sand is
sometimes added to increase the friction and create dust more speedily.
The superheated dust, or spark, is skilfully flung into the tinder of
moss or rubbed-up bark and a few puffs of breath bring a flame. All
the materials are kept very dry, and an expert will secure a fire in
a few seconds under favourable conditions.[222] This was the common
form of fire-drill throughout the continent. The “_new-fire_” of the
Aztecs,[223] produced at the termination of their fifty-two-year
cycle, when all fires were permitted to die out, was obtained with a
fire-drill similar to the one described. Even when a tribe had better
means of obtaining fire, it would preserve the primitive method in its
religious ceremonies. Before the invention of the fire-drill it was of
the greatest importance to guard and preserve the fire that had perhaps
been procured from a great distance or from some forest conflagration
which had passed away. Hence it assumed a sacred character, and those
who were entrusted with its preservation were high priests. Eternal
fires, or undying fires, were the result at first of the necessity of
preserving fire, and later, when the friction-drill was discovered,
those who possessed the knowledge of it were correspondingly endowed
with power over the remainder.
[Illustration: THE PALM-DRILL (FIRE-MAKING)]
[Illustration: THE PUMP-DRILL (FIRE-MAKING)]
[Illustration: ESKIMO STRING-DRILL.
(FOR FIRE-MAKING WITH MOUTHPIECE)
]
[Illustration: PUEBLO PUMP-DRILL.
(FOR BORING)]
[Illustration: DRILL-POINT OF CHIPPED FLINT]
After the palm-drill comes the string-drill, wherein the drill is
operated by means of a cord twisted about it, the ends being pulled
back and forth, and the top of the stick being held firm by insertion
in a socket, the latter being grasped in one hand or, when there was
only one operator, taken in the mouth. The old Eskimo drill is of this
description, produced probably because the surroundings compelled
swifter and harder revolutions of the stick to obtain the desired
results. A further development is the bow-drill, used by the Eskimo and
others, where instead of pulling the ends of the string a bent piece
of wood, or bow, is attached to them, the movement of which back and
forth rotates the stick. This is used with a mouthpiece for a socket.
Another form, but one seldom used for fire-getting, is the pump-drill,
where the stick connected with the ends of the cord runs across the
drill stock, and sometimes has the stock passing through it, the string
being so adjusted around the stock that an up-and-down motion of the
crossbar imparts a rotary, reciprocating movement to the stock. This
is the form used by the Pueblos for stone drilling, etc.[224] The
fire-drill entered into the religious ceremonies of most tribes, and,
conventionalised in the so-called cross of the Palenque tablet, which
is a development, according to Bandelier, of the fire-drill through
ornamentation, it puzzled the Europeans, causing them for a time to
imagine that Christianity had preceded Columbus to the New World.
[Illustration: SET OF FIRE-MAKING TOOLS, BRISTOL BAY ESKIMO, ALASKA
Showing stepped hearth. Mouthpiece is set with a socket-bearing of
black stone
String
Hearth
Mouthpiece
Drill
]
[Illustration: ESKIMO BOW-DRILL]
To return to the bow again, the length of it varies in different
localities. In a densely wooded country, a long bow would often be
in the way, and this and other reasons would make it shorter. The
average length is about forty inches. The string is made of sinew,
well twisted and, at the ends, braided. Arrows are of different kinds
in the same tribe: some blunt or with wood points sharpened for bird
shooting, or for other small animals; arrows adapted for deer; for
large fowl; and others still for heavy game like bison or bear. The
head of the game arrow was set in the plane of the string—that is, the
notch was quite or nearly in line with the head, and, when adjusted
to the bowstring, stood at a slight angle, the bow always being held
diagonally across the shooter’s body. The head would thus strike
between an animal’s ribs. War arrows, on the other hand, had their
notches so placed that the head of the arrow went from the bow in a
horizontal position, because the ribs of a man lie that way.[225] It
will be seen that the head was not at right angles to the notch, for in
that case it would not have been projected horizontally. The adjustment
of the notch to produce the desired position would always be regulated
by the habit of holding the bow. Since the rifle came into use, little
attention probably has been given to this point. The arrow-shaft is
round, about a quarter inch in diameter, and from twenty to thirty
inches long, though some are longer.[226] Long ones are usually made
of reed with a hardwood tip, upon which the head is mounted; this, as
noted above, now being of hoop iron. Stone heads formerly were the
chief method of tipping the shaft. In 1875 I purchased a number of
these from an old arrow-maker of the Pai Ute tribe. The other end of
the shaft is feathered. This is done by attaching split feathers to
it with the web cut narrow, for the purpose of giving it guidance.
This feathering is a distinguishing feature, and an expert can place
the maker of an arrow by the style of feathering. Feathers of birds
of prey are almost invariably employed. The number is sometimes two,
but generally three. They are attached by strands of moist sinew
wound around the ends and when the sinew is dry it becomes a smooth
firm band. Three zigzag grooves are scratched down the shaft, some
say not, as popularly believed, for the purpose of aiding the flow of
blood, but because this is the lightning symbol, and is intended to
endow the arrow with speed and certainty. But Dorsey says the Omahas
told him their object was to increase flow of blood from the wound.
Poisoned arrows were made by dipping the points into rotting liver or
rattlesnake venom, etc. These were used for war. The arrow-shaft when
first made is by no means always straight, but the Amerind invented a
piece of horn or stone with perforations through which the heated shaft
is drawn till it is straight. See illustration at head of this chapter.
Quivers are all very similar in plan also, usually comprising a case
for the bow, one for the arrows, and in some tribes a pouch containing
arrow-making tools. The Eskimo make their quivers of sealskin, other
tribes use cat, deer, panther, otter, etc. The spear doubtless preceded
the bow and arrow. It is little used by the interior tribes, but in the
form of the harpoon, as well as the regular spear form, is common among
the Eskimo and other coast Amerinds.[227]
[Illustration: MODERN ROD ARMOUR OF THE KLAMATHS, OREGON
Made up of 44 oval rods of pine wood. The cord is of native hemp
and cords made of sisal, the latter probably derived from ropes of
white make. Cords are coloured red and yellow. Bound with buckskin
painted red; shoulder-straps of buckskin; tying straps at the
sides. Width, 38 in.; height, 21 in.
]
[Illustration: HUPA ROD ARMOUR, CALIFORNIA
“Made of 118 peeled rods, woven together with native twine,
bound with buckskin on upper and lower edges and arm-holes.
Shoulder-straps of leather; six horizontal stripes of red cord
cross the front. The red lines denote the number of enemies slain
or captives taken; also the rank of the wearer. This class of
armour was in common use among the Natanos and Kennucks before the
introduction of firearms; but it is now obsolete, nearly.” Width,
41 in.; height, 21 in.
]
[Illustration: ESKIMO PLATE ARMOUR, DIOMEDE ISLAND, BERING STRAIT
“Made of five imbricating rows of plates of walrus ivory of unequal
size in the different rows, pierced with from 6 to 13 holes, lashed
with sealskin thongs.” 164 plates in all. In form, lashing and
adjustment of plates it is identical with certain types of Japanese
armour. Width, extended, 49 in.; height, 24 in.
]
In armour, the Amerind was inventive, as in everything else, and he
devised some excellent means for defence for the body[228]; and
borrowed one form, according to Hough, from Asia. His shields were made
of wood, basketry, cotton, and rawhide, and were usually circular. The
commonest material was rawhide, which was often contracted and hardened
by fire, and then covered with buckskin. It was variously ornamented,
and the decoration was the outcome of many a religious ceremony
conducted according to long-established rules. It was “invariably held
on the left arm, usually by a simple thong of buckskin attached to the
interior.” Many shields have two covers, each held on by a gathering
string. In New Mexico and Mexico some tribes used one that could be
shut up like a fan, and the Navajos had one that was made of cedar rods
tied together with cords.
[Illustration: TLINKIT SKIN ARMOUR, ALASKA
“Made of tanned hide; two thicknesses; sewed along the upper
edge. The ‘swallow-tail’ portion is reinforced with two extra
thicknesses, making four in all. The coat is very heavy. The sewing
is done with sinew. Width, 25 in.; height, 33 in.”
]
[Illustration: PREHISTORIC ALEUTIAN ROD ARMOUR
“The small rods composing it are about ¾ in. diameter, painted
red. Width, 40 in.; height, 25 in. Position as on the body. It was
fastened behind with two loops of sinew, into which wooden buttons
were inserted”
]
The body armour was made of rows of overlapping plates, lashed
together, of slats, of rods, of skins, and of cotton padded. The plate
armour is the one that was borrowed from Asia; a migration apparently
across Bering Strait. The cotton-padded armour was confined to the
Amerinds of Mexico and Central America, but the other varieties were
distributed over the whole area. In the plate armour, “small, flat,
oblong plates of ivory or bone pierced near the edges with from four
to six or more holes,” were lashed in series with rawhide thongs.
The coat, made in this way of a number of rows, was tied at the back
with thongs, or had a toggle fastening. Some of these plates in iron
and in copper have been dug up at Cape Prince of Wales and on St.
Lawrence Island. This armour is very similar to that of the Japanese,
and if it was wholly an imported idea, it was probably a comparatively
recent one. The Tlinkits used the slat armour and also a rod armour,
the former being made of very hard wood fastened with cords of sinew.
A Tlinkit greave has also been found among the collections in the
National Museum, so that it is probable that the North-west coast
Amerinds protected arms and legs as well as body. The Iroquois are also
reported to have used armour of rods both on their limbs and their
vital parts. The rod armour was formed by sewing or lacing together
with native twine a series of straight slender rods sufficient to
pass around the body and tie in front, with places for the arms,
and straps over the shoulders. The skin armour was simply a sort of
heavy, sleeveless shirt made of thick hide, doubled and reinforced
and otherwise rendered as nearly as possible proof against arrow or
spear. In Mexico, where the padded cotton armour was chiefly worn,
a breastplate of the same material was put on under it. The common
Aztec soldiers wore armour of “reeds, grass, and hides, or ’nequen
cloth, coated with India-rubber.”[229] Veytia says the “private
soldiers painted the upper part of the body to represent armour, but
from the waist to the thighs they wore short drawers, and over them
fastened around the waist a kind of kilt that reached to the knee, and
availed them somewhat for defence. Across the body was a sash made of
feathers that passed from the right shoulder to the left side of the
waist.”[230] Many Amerinds also wore in conjunction with the various
kinds of armour, a helmet, ranging from the feathered war-bonnet to
a heavy mask-helmet of wood. The Tarascos of Mexico, according to
Brinton, specially excelled in defensive armour, which “consisted of
helmet, body pieces, and greaves for the legs and arms, all of wood
covered neatly with copper or gold plates, so well done that the
pieces looked as if they were of solid metal.”[231] The Mayas wore
cotton armour similar to that of the Mexicans, and bore a shield also.
Breastplates of copper have been found in the Atlantic region, and many
of the Amerinds there used body armour of wood, skins, and bark.
[Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT]
[Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT BLUNT ARROW-HEAD, GEORGIA]
[Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT IMPLEMENT, TENNESSEE]
[Illustration: SPECIMEN “CORES,” OR BLOCKS OF FLINT
From which flakes were struck off for making arrow-heads, etc.
Usually about 3 in. long in the U. S., but longer elsewhere
]
[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF CHIPPED FLINT DISCS, CALLED “TURTLEBACK,”
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY]
[Illustration: GROOVED STONE AXE, TENNESSEE (GROUND)]
Another kind of defensive armour, though its qualities were purely
imaginary, is the so-called “ghost-shirt” (see illustration, page
157) made of cloth or skin, and resembling the ordinary war-shirt of
the Dakota. This shirt came into notice during the “Ghost Dance”[232]
excitement that began about 1890 and lasted for six or eight years.
It was worn by all men, women, and children who accepted the “Ghost”
doctrine, either as an outside or under garment, and it was implicitly
believed that no bullet or other weapon could penetrate its sacred
material.[233] As already remarked in another chapter, the Amerinds
in modern times, of at least the United States region, usually went
into battle naked. The only defensive armour was, as Mooney records,
“his protecting medicine,” which consisted of “a feather, a tiny bag
of some sacred powder, the claw of an animal, the head of a bird, or
some other small object, which could be readily twisted into his hair
or hidden between the covers of his shield.... Its virtue depended
entirely on the ceremony of the consecration, and not on size or
texture. The war-paint had the same magic power of protection.... The
so-called ‘war-shirt’ was worn chiefly in ceremonial dress parades and
only rarely on the warpath.”[234] Just when the armour which protected
by its intrinsic strength was abandoned for the protection of the
“medicine” is not, so far as I am aware, at present known. At one time,
it seems quite certain, the material protection of armour was almost
universal over the whole of North America, while in our latter day no
one ever saw an Amerind fight with armour on. The idea of going into
battle nude was that the warrior’s movements were unincumbered, while
his “medicine” afforded him ample protection. A Navajo who posed for
me for a picture in Arizona described the Navajo manner of going to
battle, but never mentioned armour, or any kind of protection. He said
they always went naked, with even their hair untied from its customary
knot and falling loose on the shoulders.
Stone arrow- and spear-heads are found in all parts of the continent,
but they are almost always chipped, seldom ground. Maguire, who has
made a special study of this subject, declares chipping to be one of
the most difficult of arts. “On examination,” he says, “it is found
that every rock has been worked in the best and most economical method
which its texture admits.” The usual way of making arrow-heads was to
place the bit of stone previously flaked from a nodule or fragment and
brought near the shape by percussion, on the palm of the left hand,
which is protected by a glove or a piece of buckskin, and hold it there
by the fingers of that hand while the right brings a down pressure to
bear on the edges by the point of a slender piece of horn or bone. The
chips spring off and the operation is continued till the desired shape
is attained. I tried this method once on a flake of chalcedony I had
picked up, and had no difficulty in bringing it to an arrow-head shape.
Maguire has made a great many successfully. Chisels, axes, and mauls
were made the same way or were ground into shape, a groove being made
in the axes across the sides to receive a split stick that was bound
on for a handle. It is almost unnecessary to say, perhaps, that there
never could have been a time when all tribes were equally proficient
in the art of stone working, some being skilful when others could make
nothing.[235]
[Illustration: DIAGRAM EXPLAINING TERMS TO BE USED IN DESCRIBING STONE
WEAPONS
_a_, point; _b_, edge; _c_, face; _d_, bevel; _e_, blade; _f_, tang;
_g_, stem; _h_, base; _i_, notch; _k_, neck; _m_, barb, or shoulder
]
In this country we know so well the origin of the stone implements
found in the fields that we smile when we read of people in Europe
treating them as charms and talismans. “When kept in a house they
protect it from lightning; the water in which a celt has been boiled
is a remedy against rheumatism; and sick cattle are cured by drinking
water in which a celt has been placed.” The Amerinds frequently treat
them as medicine.[236]
Some tools were produced in the rough at various sites, or workshops,
located at the quarries. Those in Ohio described by Moorehead are
probably the most extensive in North America, except the obsidian
mines of Hidalgo, Mexico. “The magnitude of the deposit is such,”
he says, “that it has given to the locality the distinctive name of
Flint Ridge.” It occupies an area about eight miles long by three
wide. Here thousands of cubic yards of earth had been removed to reach
the flint beneath. “Acre after acre has been so thoroughly excavated
that scarcely a single foot of earth and stone retains its original
position. Hundreds of wagon loads of spalls cover the ground.” One
of the pits formed in this extremely hard stone is almost a hundred
feet in diameter and more than eighteen feet deep. The method employed
was to build a fire on the rock and then throw cold water on the spot
till the edge was broken through and they could knock flakes off of
the under side with stone hammers. These were put roughly into shape
at some nearby spot and then perhaps taken far away to be finished.
This flint formed better tools than that found on the surface.[237]
Many of the blades were often piled together for some unknown reason.
In sinking a well in a corner of a mound in Illinois, eighteen large
flint spades were found a few feet below the surface, closely packed
together, and Moorehead found in Ohio the largest “cache” ever brought
to light. This formed a mound in the Hopewell group, six feet high and
sixty feet in diameter at the base, and contained over seven thousand
flint discs about the size of a man’s hand.[238]
Some spear-points found are more than a foot long and three inches
wide, and they vary from this down to what may be termed large
arrow-heads. Some writers claim that only the very small smallest
heads were from arrows, but this would vary according to the tribe
and the game hunted, just as we have various bores to our rifles. The
stone arrow-heads of the Pai Utes twenty-five years ago were small,
but the smallest were often attached to the longest arrows. The method
of securing the head to the shaft was generally similar everywhere. A
notch being cut in the end of the stick, a small quantity of pitch,
asphaltum, fish, or animal glue, or cement, was placed in it,
warmed, and the stone head squeezed into position, where it was held
by wrappings of wet sinew thread which, drying, gave it a firm grip,
and yet when moistened by blood would allow the head to come off in
a wound. The sinew was variously applied, according to the shape of
the head. The triangular head was held on by passing the sinew over
the outer edges, while in that with a tang, which went well down into
the shaft, the sinew was wound round and round the shaft and over the
tang at the same time. All iron heads were made and mounted in the
latter way. In the leaf-shaped head with deep notches, the wrapping
was thoroughly protected by the depth of the notches through which
it passed. The hafting of knives was much like that of arrows and
spears, the ordinary stone knife looking much like a spear-head, and
probably some implements that are classed as spear-heads were knives
instead. Many were double-edged, while others were single. Some of the
diminutive stone implements resembling arrow-heads were drill-heads
or awls, and also heads for the children’s play-arrows.[239] There is
also a great range in the size of the stone axes and hammers, from mere
toys to those so large as to be unwieldy. Grooved stone axes are found
all over the continent, except in the mounds of Ohio. Like other stone
implements, they have often been used successively by various tribes.
Those used to-day by the Mokis and Zuñis are some they have found, and
they use them as pounders and pestles. Many of the axes and hammers
were weapons of war.
[Illustration: TLINKIT SLAT-AND-ROD ARMOUR, ALASKA, FRONT VIEW
“Made of slats and rods of hard wood, 1¼ to 1½ in. wide, ⁵⁄₁₆ in.
thick, woven together by means of fine sinew cord so as to admit
of considerable flexibility. The rods and slats are pared down to
form channels for the reception of the cord weaving. The front and
back portions are woven separately. The neck portions are made up
of short slats, and sewed on by means of a strip of rawhide 1½ in.
wide. The shoulder supports are of very thick elkhide, the one
on the right being fastened by a slash and toggle. Width of rear
portion, 24 in.; height, 20 in.; width of front portion, 18 in.;
height, 19 in.”
]
[Illustration: APACHE WAR-BONNET]
The Amerinds were so skilful in the use of stone tools that it is
related that in the early days of the West they would skin and dress
a deer with a stone almost as quickly as a white man could do it with
a hunting-knife. For this purpose they would pick up a thin stone and
with a few sharp blows from another stone bring it to a cutting edge.
Skins were dressed by scrapers of bone or stone to remove superfluous
flesh. Pins were used for stretching them on the ground.
Among the Eskimo the harpoon reached a high state of perfection, and
many of their weapons are beautifully made. Bone, wood, and ivory were
utilised for the shaft, and a specially unique one was made from the
single horn of the narwhal. Spears or lances were also used for land
animals before they had firearms. They are now pretty well supplied
with the latest Winchester rifles. The harpoon to-day has a blade of
thin iron or steel set into an ivory or bone piece which has a hole
through it that retains in place a sealskin thong to which a line
is attached. The bottom of the ivory piece has a socket in it that
fits on to the lance shaft. When the harpoon strikes an animal’s body
the head of it then hangs there on the end of the line, coming loose
from the shaft. There are various forms of the harpoon for different
animals, and they are also of different sizes according to the weight
and strength of the owner. Formerly the blades were of slate, jade,
or flint. Floats of sealskin inflated are used to mark the place
of a capture, so that carcass and harpoon can be easily recovered.
The Eskimo had a wolf-killer that was ingenious. A stout piece of
whalebone, about a foot long and half an inch broad, was sharpened at
the ends and then frozen in a piece of blubber in a Z shape. The wolf
swallowing it, its own heat released the whalebone, which penetrated
the sides of the stomach and killed the animal. Each tribe had a varied
assortment of implements according to locality and occupation, and it
would not be possible even to mention them all in a single chapter, so
I shall give only the most important. The bird spear of the Eskimo is a
singular weapon. The shaft is laid on a short board fifteen to eighteen
inches long, which has a groove to receive the shaft, a handle, and a
hole for the first finger. A spike in the shaft prevents slipping, and
when the board is hurled forward by a strong wrist motion, the fingers
let go the shaft, which, leaving the board, flies forward to the mark
with considerable force. These spears are also used by the Aleuts.
The Eskimo also use for bird killing six or seven ivory balls, each
attached to a string about thirty inches long, the ends of the strings
being supplied with tufts of feathers. The balls spread apart in flying
through the air and cover a wide space. For war all tribes had clubs
and tomahawks. The Mexicans used some with blades of obsidian set in
both edges.
[Illustration: ESKIMO THROWING-BOARDS FOR DARTS.]
[Illustration: ESKIMO BIRD BOLAS.]
In the line of throwing weapons is the _pūtchkohu_ of the Mokis, a
first cousin to the Australian boomerang. It is effective at thirty
or forty yards, but does not return. It is a flat piece of curved oak,
sawed out of a bend of a limb, about twenty inches long, one quarter to
one half inch thick, and two inches wide, with a small handle at one
end. It is thrown with the concave side forward.
[Illustration: AMERINDIAN KNIVES
Ute stone knife. Handle of wood and blade set in a dark cement
Eskimo slate knives. Handles of wood
]
Nets were used for fishing and for hunting. The Pai Utes made a good
net of cord, from milkweed or sagebrush bark, about as thick as
telegraph wire. It was about fifty feet long and three feet broad, and
was propped up on the ground on a number of slender rods, one net being
joined to another’s end until a large semi-circle was formed into which
rabbits from a large area were frightened by noises. Caught in the
meshes, they were soon despatched by their pursuers. Many Amerinds used
nets for fishing, and the Eskimo make a fine, strong one of sealskin,
with which they catch the seal itself as it rushes after prey in the
waters near some beach where the net is stretched. I obtained one that
is fifty feet long and about six feet wide, with meshes seven inches
square.
[Illustration: MOKI THROWING-STICK, OR PUTCHKOHU.]
[Illustration: PUEBLO PLANTING STICK.]
[Illustration: ZUÑI WOODEN SPADE.
Used for shovelling snow from roofs and for taking bread from ovens
]
For agricultural operations the Amerinds had various tools, which,
though primitive, answered the requirements. Of the plough, or
anything approaching it, they had no knowledge, the hoe being their
chief implement. This was made of flint, the shoulder-blade of a deer
or other animal, a turtle shell or some similar object. Spades were
also made, often of wood, and in the Mississippi region of flint, but
these are seldom found in the Atlantic division. In the Moki country
corn is still planted with a dibble, a stick sharpened at one end and
having on one side a projection to receive the foot, which pressed it
into the soil. Having cultivated a crop of maize, the grain had to be
reduced to meal before it would serve for winter use, and for this
purpose mortars of wood and stone were used, and also the _metates_,
or mealing stones. Other substances besides corn were also ground in
the mortars, as seeds of grass, dried fish, nuts, grasshoppers, paint,
etc. Sometimes natural depressions in rocks were utilised, but oftener
small bowlders were worked into the desired shape and stone pestles
were wrought out to accompany them. The cavity was of various depths.
Those tribes growing little corn made mortars neither large nor deep,
and some, like the Pai Utes, growing no corn at all, ground their grass
seeds on a flat stone, while those relying chiefly on corn for food,
like the Pueblos and the Mexicans, in the early days made large oblong
mortars, of hard basalt cut out to a depth of six or eight inches, with
sides not more than an inch and a half or two inches thick. While these
were really mortars, the grain was not pounded in them, but crushed
and rubbed into meal by means of another stone, flat and oblong, about
four and a half inches wide and some ten inches long and an inch or
two thick. When the Pueblos and Mexicans settled in permanent houses
they departed from the old way of hollowing out these stones, and used
instead a flat slab, set up at an angle of about thirty-five degrees in
a frame of slabs of stone, or of wood, about six or eight inches deep.
Several of these slabs were fixed in a row, usually three, and were
each made to produce different degrees of fineness by the girls behind
till at the last stone, or metate,[240] as they are usually called, the
meal was of the required condition. See page 194. The Eastern Amerinds
usually pounded their corn with stone pestles in wooden mortars. Some
Western tribes used the same method. Diminutive mortars were used for
preparing face paints, while others were children’s toys. The so-called
cupped-stones have sometimes been supposed to be paint mortars, but, as
pointed out in a previous chapter (p. 66), they may have been mostly
used for roughing and shaping the ends of fire-drills.
[Illustration: A MOKI THROWING THE PUTCHKOHU
The “East Mesa” is seen in the right distance whereon are the three
villages of—left to right—Walpi, Cichumovi, Tewa. The dressing of
the hair is Navajo, as well as the turban, the model’s uncle being
Navajo but a Moki citizen
From a drawing by the author Permission of the Century Co.
]
The Navajos carve moulds for their silver casting in sandstone, and it
seems likely that some of the so-called stone tablets, inscribed with
figures that are not clearly defined, may have been nothing more than
moulds, in those regions, at least, where it is known that copper or
other metals were worked.[241]
The spindle and loom, which belong among the implements and tools
enumerated here, have already been described in connection with weaving
and they will now be passed by. The tools used in metal working will be
mentioned in a following chapter.
[Illustration: SHELL SPOON, MISSISSIPPI VALLEY]
Household utensils were made of various materials, of which
earthenware, as noted in the chapter on Pottery, was one of the chief.
There were also trays, boxes, buckets, and cups of wood. Others were of
whalebone, sealskin, soapstone, and ivory. Spoons were made from the
horns of the mountain sheep, from those of goats, and from bison horns.
Some of these spoons, made of horn by the North-west coast Amerinds,
are elaborately carved and polished. Clam, oyster, conch, and turtle
shells also served for ladles and spoons. Drinking cups, dippers,
water-bottles, and other vessels were made of gourds. Metallic cups
or pots have not been found antedating the arrival of the Spaniards.
Soapstone vessels, as well as earthenware, were made and used in the
Atlantic region; soapstone by the Eskimo. Quarries exist where the
material was obtained, especially in the Chesapeake-Potomac tidewater
region. Special pick-like stone tools were made for cutting out these
pots and masses. The Eskimo, who once ranged down as far as the mouth
of the Hudson and possibly farther, may have originally opened up some
of these quarries.
[Illustration: PUEBLO MOUNTAIN SHEEP-HORN SPOON.]
[Illustration: MENOMINEE WOODEN MORTAR AND PESTLE]
In the line of utensils, the Eskimo lamp, is, perhaps, one of the
most important and unique.[242] No other Amerinds had anything of
the kind. It was a necessity with the Eskimo, while tribes living in
wooded regions would have no use for it. They could obtain light from
camp-fires, especially with the addition of pitch pine. But the Eskimo
lamp is primarily a heating apparatus. What need then for Amerinds,
who had wood, to bother with a lamp, for which oil must be prepared?
Besides this consideration was the one of cleanliness, for the lamp is
very dirty, and even Amerinds have standards. “Far more remarkable than
being the unique possessors of the lamp in the Western Hemisphere,”
says Hough, “the Eskimo present the spectacle of a people depending
for their very existence upon this household belonging. Indeed, it is
a startling conclusion that the lamp has determined the occupancy of
an otherwise uninhabitable region by the Eskimo, or, in other words,
the distribution of a race.”[243] When fuel can be obtained, which is
the case often in summer, fires are used instead of the lamp. This
fuel is peat, grass, driftwood, or shrubs. The lamp is generally of
soapstone, though some have been made of clay, earthenware, bone, or
wood. The usual shape is something like a clam shell, though they are
sometimes oval or pear-shaped, or round. They are modified in form
according to the use required of them, the traveller’s lamp being much
smaller necessarily than the ordinary lamp of the iglu. The lamps vary
in length from two or three inches to about two feet, and in width from
one half inch to nine or ten inches, while the height is from less
than an inch to four or five. The smallest specimens are toy lamps of
the children, and the next in size the traveller’s lamp. Small lamps
are often balanced but the large ones are not, but are supported by
a wooden block or by pegs of wood or bone stuck into the snow. The
shallow hollow of the lamp is filled with seal oil, which is obtained
in winter by freezing the blubber, when the oil can easily be extracted
by beating; in summer often by chewing it out. The wick is of moss
and is arranged along the wide side of the lamp. It has to be trimmed
frequently, but when kept in good order gives a bright illumination
which Schwatka declared to be “certainly equal to the light from three
or four kerosene lamps.” The oil is kept in sealskins, which are made
into bottles by sewing, and the comfort and cheerfulness of the iglu
during the long night depend on the stock of oil which the family has
been able to secure. The farther north, the larger the lamp, because
the darkness is longer and the cold greater. _Vice versa_, southward it
finally disappears.
[Illustration: STONE HOUSE-LAMP, POINT BARROW, ALASKA.
3 in. to 2 ft. in length
]
In transportation facilities the Amerinds were extremely deficient, the
Eskimo excelling all others in this direction. This was the result of
environment and does not indicate superiority of the Eskimo over other
stocks. They had vast treeless plains and ice sheets to traverse, and
the sledge was a necessity. Dogs all Amerinds had, and some of them
used them, to a certain extent, for beasts of burden, so that there
was not a great deal of invention required to attach one or several
to the sledge. On the other hand, most Amerinds were not so situated
that they could utilise the dog in this way, and the continent offered
them no substitute for it unless, as has been suspected, some of the
South-western tribes may have had an animal resembling the vicuna,
which they kept for its wool and presumably for transportation purposes
also. But there is as yet no trustworthy evidence of this, and it may
be said that the Amerinds of North America as a race possessed no beast
of burden but the dog. In time, had the bison not been exterminated,
and provided also that the whites had not come, it is possible that
this animal might have been domesticated for milk, for meat, and for
draught purposes. But the bison, after all, was ill adapted to work,
for he is clumsy, so that the Amerind really had only the dog that
was practicable, and this he utilised as far as possible, or at least
as far as necessity directed. The Amerinds encountered on the plains
of Texas in 1540 by Coronado were using the dog,[244] just as they
afterward used the horse, for transporting tents and tent poles. A
great many different forms of sledge are in use among the Eskimo, and
besides the regular sledges, walrus skins, rolls of sealskins, and
even packs of salmon are sometimes used for the purpose. When skins
are used they are soaked with fresh water and sewed in a bag which is
given the desired shape and then allowed to freeze solid, in which
condition it remains till the return of warm weather. The Eskimo is
never troubled with a “January thaw.” Sometimes sledges are made out of
slabs of fresh-water ice frozen together; or blocks of ice are hollowed
out. The runners of the ordinary sledge are usually made of driftwood
and are from five to fifteen feet long and twenty inches to two and a
half feet apart. The runners are connected by crossbars of wood or bone
and are shod with whalebone, ivory, jawbone of whale, and sometimes
with frozen fish. The shoe is either tied or riveted in place, and the
parts are generally tied together, though now iron nails are sometimes
used. When there is a back to the sledge it is made, in the Central
regions, of wood or of deer or caribou antlers. Very small sleds are
used for running boats out of water, and their runners are often single
walrus tusks, the rest being of any wood obtainable. “The dog harness
consists of a broad band or strap of stout rawhide, with three parallel
loops at one end.... The head is passed through the middle loop, and a
foreleg through each of the side loops, bringing the main part of the
thong over the back.”[245] This is the trace, and by means of a toggle
it is fastened to a long line that runs back to the sledge and connects
all the dogs with it. The Central Eskimo make two bights passing under
the forelegs, joined by two straps across the neck and breast. The
dogs are not driven in Alaska,[246] but they are in the Central and
Eastern regions, and Boas asserts that silence must be maintained
during the journey, for the dogs will stop, turn around, sit down, and
listen to any conversation that is carried on. The dogs are wolf-like
in appearance, but are not given to barking. Indeed, they seem to pay
little attention to a stranger. A long whip is used for touching them
up when on the sledge. Steering is done by the legs of the driver. In
the late spring, when there are sharp ice needles, a sort of leather
boot, with holes for the nails, is tied to the dogs’ feet to keep them
from getting sore. In summer-time they have an easy life of it. The
Alaska sledge has no back, but has a rail on each side.
[Illustration: ESKIMO SLEDGES]
[Illustration: CENTRAL ESKIMO DOG HARNESS]
[Illustration: ENCLOSED CANADIAN TOBOGGAN OR TRAVELLING SLED
From Porcupine River, Alaska. Length about 8 ft.; width, 14 in.;
height of body, 18 in.
]
“The sleds of the Chippewayan,” says Mason, “are formed of thin slips
of board, turned up in front, and are highly polished.”[247] This is
the toboggan, or Amerind sled without runners, developed and used in
the region lying between that occupied by the Eskimo and about the
northern limit of the United States. Dogs were attached to the toboggan
by some tribes, as the Tinne, who also used the dogs in summer as pack
animals. The toboggan, however, was usually pulled by men, and its
object was the transportation of a load which would otherwise need to
be carried. It was made of a single thin plank, or of two, fastened
together on the upper surface with battens, and having the forward
end turned up and over like a letter C and fixed in this position
by rawhide cords attached properly to the first cross batten, and
sometimes a rawhide line is also carried back to the last batten to
give additional strength. The toboggan is now in common use among the
whites of America, especially the Canadians.
In pulling the toboggan over the snow the traveller would sink deep
and become tired with only ordinary foot covering, so the Amerind
invented a shoe expressly for snow travel. This is familiar to almost
everybody, but a brief description will be added for the sake of those
who may not have seen it. There are two kinds of snow-shoe; those
represented by the Norwegian ski, made of wood, long and slender, and
not used in America before their introduction from Europe. The only
wooden shoe recorded is an Eskimo one made in the same shape as their
others. The other kind of snow-shoe[248] is the Amerind one made by
bending to an oval shape a slender piece of wood for a frame, and
filling the interval with rawhide netting; and it was in use all over
North America, where snow remained for any length of time. Among some
tribes these shoes were “rights and lefts,” but as a rule they were
interchangeable. They are generally the shape of a long, pointed oval,
but some are almost round. There are two crossbars to hold the frame in
shape, and also to form supports for the toe and heel. Some shoes were
four or five feet long and seven or eight inches wide, and turned up
at the forward end, while others were short and broad and not turned
up, the interval between being filled by a series in great variety. The
foot is held in position by suitable thongs or straps. These shoes are
now in common use by the whites.
[Illustration: ESKIMO SNOW-SHOE, POINT BARROW, ALASKA.]
[Illustration: CANOES OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST
Models of the family or transportation type. Hunting and fishing
canoes are similar. All these boats are hollowed from single cedar
logs, and then somewhat widened by spreading. They often carry a
great number of persons
]
In summer the means of travel, before the horse came with the European,
were, on land, nothing more than a good pair of legs, but, on the
water, it was different. There, many of the Amerinds were at home,
for they had some of the most admirable small boats ever devised.
Chief of these, for lightness and grace, is the birchbark canoe,[249]
though the Eskimo kayak is not far behind it. The birchbark canoe is
made in various sizes and in different tribes has variations, but the
type is the same everywhere. There is a slender, well-made frame of
wood, consisting of ribs, gunwales, and stiffening strips, over which
the bark, which has previously been sewed together, is stretched. The
bow is a trifle broader across the beam than the stern, but both are
pointed. The bark covering is rendered water-tight, where there are
holes or seams, with pine gum. The paddle is similar to the paddle
in use everywhere by the Amerinds, having a sort of T-shaped top to
the handle, and being about five feet long and four to six inches
wide. This kind of canoe was made wherever there was birchbark and
water to float it. Another form of boat which was universal was the
dugout canoe. This varied in size and shape according to locality,
and was always hollowed out of a single tree, by fire and by gouging.
When completed it was spread open wider, so that one of these boats
has the appearance of being from a larger tree than is the case. The
finest dugout canoes are those of the North-west coast, where they are
constructed from cedar trees of huge proportions. One of these canoes,
made by the Haidas, now in the American Museum in New York, is almost
a ship and could be navigated in stormy waters. The Haida canoes are
often elaborately carved. Farther up the coast the Tlinkits are experts
likewise in canoe building and in the management of them. Their canoes
are also hollowed from single logs. Many of them are small, being
barely large enough for two persons. Some have a peculiar projection,
a point sticking out from the lower part in line with the place where
the keel would be if they had one, and also another at the top, rather
square; that is, the wedge-like end is hollowed out in the middle.
Either end is sent forward, but the prong end usually first. It seemed
as if this projection might be intended to ward off ice, for it is in
the regions of Yakutat and Glacier bays that it is the dominant type;
and there ice is always floating from the glaciers. At Prince William
Sound the _baidarka_,[250] or kayak, comes into use. This is certainly
the perfection of a canoe. The frame is admirably made, being tied
together and covered with walrus hide, or sealskin, and the boat rests
on the sea seeming scarcely to sink into it. The umiak is the boat for
travelling and general transportation. In it the whole family, or even
two or three families, with all their trappings, journey about—dogs,
children, packages, and adults all combined. In the sunlight its rich,
translucent yellow colour is beautiful, and when filled with the
good-natured, ruddy-cheeked Eskimo, clad in soft and elegant furs, the
picture formed is one that is remembered ever after. In the Eastern
regions it is termed the woman’s boat. They are usually about thirty
feet long, five or six wide, and thirty inches deep. The ends are both
rather pointed, and the bottom is flat. Sometimes there will be fifteen
or twenty persons in one of the umiaks at the same time. The frame is
on the same general principle as all other boats—that is, a combination
of certain ribs, thwarts, braces, etc. All these pieces are lashed
together, and when the skin covering is on, the umiak is a staunch and
excellent craft, albeit it is entirely open. The cover is laced on,
and in winter it is removed and stored away till the waters are open
once more, when it is soaked in the sea to render it soft and again
stretched in place.
[Illustration: UMIAK OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO
The Alaska umiak has no oars and is more pointed
]
[Illustration: ESKIMO KAYAKS
The framework is tied together and covered with walrus or other
hide. Sometimes, as in the Aleut kayaks, there are two or three
hatch-holes
]
The umiak[251] has a sail of the square sort, made in these days out of
cotton, though formerly of seal intestine, which is attached to a yard.
The mast is some twelve feet high. The paddles are about five feet long
and six inches wide, though there are smaller ones also. Sometimes oars
are used as well as the paddles in navigating the umiak. The kayak
is made in the same way by stretching skins over a wood frame tied
together most dexterously. The navigator sits in a hatchway, as the
kayak is entirely covered, and a sort of apron tied around his waist
and around the coaming renders the boat water-tight. It is said some
of the Alaskans will turn a somersault in the water, coming up on the
opposite side.
[Illustration: METHOD OF ATTACHING OARS TO UMIAK]
[Illustration: METHOD OF TYING FRAME OF KAYAK]
Besides the boats mentioned there were others on the continent made in
different ways,[252] but these are the chief ones and serve to show
that the Amerind was ready to adapt himself to water when occasion
demanded. Taken all in all, his weapons, armour, implements, and
his transportation methods show, as other things do, that he was a
progressing, thinking being, with a good brain directing his operations.
[Illustration: THIN PLATE OF COPPER WROUGHT BY REPOUSSÉ METHOD,
ILLINOIS MOUND]