Fig. 1. This instrument is ten inches long, two inches and a half broad
at the top, and one at the point. It is made of one of the branches of
the antler of the moose or elk. The breadth of the upper portion is not
seen in the figure, as the piece is represented as viewed edgewise.
It is obliquely truncated at the lower end, so as to give it a
chisel-shaped edge, and shows the effect of having been hacked by some
dull tool. Attached to a handle it might be used to dig with, or might
serve for the purpose of a head-breaker, or “casse-téte,” as described
by Father Rasles.[17] From Frenchman’s Bay.
Fig. 2. A flat-pointed instrument, 3¾ inches long, and 1¼ wide. This is
made of the dense exterior portion of an antler, and at the lower end
has a thin sharp edge as in Fig. 2 _a_. From Crouch’s Cove.
Fig. 3. A piece of one of the branches of the antler of a deer, from
which the tip has been cut off. The sides near the pointed end have
been worked down so as to present four faces, two of the angles uniting
them being quite acute. The detached piece having a deep notch would
be provided with two points or barbs, and would be adapted to serve as
the point of an arrow. Such points were used by the aborigines, and
we are informed by Winslow, that when the Pilgrims were making their
first explorations on the shore at Cape Cod, previously to landing at
Plymouth, some of the arrows shot at them had the kind of point just
described.[18] From Cotuit Port.
Fig. 4. An artificially pointed fragment of bone. From Crouch’s Cove.
Fig. 5. An artificially pointed fragment of bone, suitable for the
purpose of an awl. From Crouch’s Cove.
Fig. 6. A fragment of a bone of a bird, obliquely truncated and
artificially sharpened. From Crouch’s Cove.
Fig. 7. One of the lower incisors of a beaver, ground to a thin, sharp
edge, which last is formed by the enamel on the inner, or flat side of
the tooth. From Crouch’s Cove.
Fig. 8. A well wrought and polished spindle-shaped instrument, the
lower end of which is flattened, and has a sharp edge; the upper
portion is rounded with the end broken off, but appears to have been
worked to a sharp point. From Frenchman’s Bay.
Fig. 9. A slender piece of bone, smoothly wrought and pointed. From
Frenchman’s Bay.
Figs. 10 and 12, from Frenchman’s Bay, and 11 and 13, from Crouch’s
Cove, are all made of flattened pieces, each being cut from the walls
of one of the long bones, and showing the concellated structure on one
of the sides.
Fig. 15. From Eagle Hill; the serrated edge is quite sharp, but from
this the bone rapidly increases to one-third of an inch in thickness,
so as to render it wholly unsuitable to be used as a saw.
Figs. 16 and 17 are flat, scraped very thin, as seen in 17 _a_; one of
them is made from the bone of a bird. From Eagle Hill.
The specimens represented by the figures just enumerated, together
with other wrought pieces more or less mutilated, and collections of
the bones and shells from each of the heaps, are preserved in the
Peabody Museum of Archæology and Ethnology at Cambridge, and in the
Ethnological Department of the Essex Institute in Salem. Of these
specimens, those represented in Figs. 6, 7, 11, 13 and 14, were from
the Rev. J. A. Swan; Figs. 1, 9, 12 from Mr. William A. Hayes; Figs. 2
and 4 from Mr. Horace Mann; Figs. 10 and 17 from Mr. F. W. Putnam; Fig.
15 from Mr. E. S. Morse, and Figs. 3, 5, 8, 10, from the writer.
[Illustration: KJOEKKENMOEDDING]