From a very early date shells must have been employed quite extensively
by the ancient Americans as implements, as weapons for war and the
chase, as appliances for fishing, as agricultural implements, and as
knives, gougers, scrapers, perforators, etc., in a variety of arts. It
is a noteworthy fact, however, that our collections do not abound in
objects of these classes, and our literature furnishes but little
information on the subject. Our interest lies chiefly in such of these
objects as have been shaped by the hand of man, but to illustrate their
use we will find it instructive to study the various ways in which the
natural shells have been employed. In this manner we may trace the
origin and development of artificial forms.
As we have seen in the early modification of food utensils the beginning
of the art of cutting and shaping shell, which in time led to the
manufacture of objects of taste, and probably proved an important step
in the evolution of native American art, so in this convenient and
workable material, as employed in the mechanical arts, we witness the
inception of many important human industries, and in the rude machines
constructed from shell probably behold the prototypes of numerous works
in stone and metal. It cannot be supposed that such of these objects as
we do possess are of very ancient date, as the material is not
sufficiently enduring. It is also improbable that such objects would, as
a rule, be so frequently deposited in graves, as food vessels or objects
of personal display, and objects not so deposited must soon have
disappeared.
The early explorers of the American coast make occasional mention of the
employment of shells in the various arts. As many of these notices are
interesting, and have an important bearing upon the subject under
consideration, I will present a number of them here. Among a majority of
the American Indians, knives of stone, obsidian, jasper, and flint were
in general use, but it would seem that shells artificially shaped and
sharpened were also sometimes used for shaping objects in wood and clay,
in preparing food, in dressing game, and in human butchery.
Strachey informs us, in volume VI of the Hakluyt Society, that when the
omnipotent Powhatan "would punish any notorious enemy or trespasser, he
causeth him to be tyed to a tree, and with muscle shells or reedes the
executioner cutteth off his joints one after another, ever casting what
is cutt off into the fier; then doth he proceede with shells and reedes
to case the skyn from his head and face."[30]
Such knives were also used by Powhatan's women for cutting off their
hair.[31]
A number of authors mention the use of shells as scalping-knives.
Kalm, speaking of the Indians of New Jersey, says that "instead of
knives, they were satisfied with little sharp pieces of flint or quartz,
or else some other hard kind of a stone, or with a sharp shell, or with
a piece of bone, which they had sharpened."[32]
The Indians encountered by Henry Hudson during his first voyage, in
making him welcome, "killed a fat dog, and skinned it in great haste
with shells which they had."[33]
Beverly asserts that before the English supplied the Virginia Indians
with metallic tools, "their Knives were either sharpen'd Reeds, or
Shells, and their Axes sharp Stones bound to the end of a Stick, and
glued in with Turpentine. By the help of these they made their Bows of
the Locust Tree."[34]
Drake, in his "World Encompassed," speaking of some of the southern
tribes of South America, probably the Patagonians, says that "their
hatchetts and knives are made of mussel-shells, being great and a foot
in length, the brickle part whereof being broken off, they grind them by
great labor to a fine edge and very sharpe, and as it seemeth, very
durable.[35] * * * Their working tools, which they use in cutting these
things and such other, are knives made of most huge and monstrous
mussell shells (the like whereof have not been seen or heard of lightly
by any travelers, the meate thereof being very savourie and good in
eating), which, after they have broken off the thinne and brittle
substance of the edge, they rub and grind them upon stones had for the
purpose, till they have tempered and set such an edge upon them, that no
wood is so hard but they will cut it at pleasure with the same."[36]
According to Sproat, shell knives were used by the Indians of
Vancouver's Island in carving the curious wooden images placed over
graves.[37]
Ancient shell knives are very rarely found in collections. Such
specimens as have come to my notice could as well be classed as scrapers
or celts. We will probably not be far wrong in concluding that such
implements were used for scraping and digging as well as for cutting. As
a rule, knives proper were simply sharpened bivalve shells. The scrapers
so frequently mentioned were doubtless often the same, but probably more
frequently portions of the lower whorl of the large univalves.