CHIPPED IMPLEMENTS
PERFORATORS
These most interesting objects are widespread throughout the United
States. Wherever chipped implements abound, they are to be found.
Their classification is:—
1. Cross-section.
(A) Round.
(B) Quadrangular or irregular.
2. Stem.
(A) Without stem. (All types shown in Fig. 196.)
(B) With stem.
(a) Stem expanding gradually.
(b) Stem expanding suddenly.
3. Irregular forms.
Many objects heretofore called drills are in my opinion hairpins and
cloak-fasteners, even in early historic times. Blankets or cloaks draped
over the shoulders, and joined together on the chest, had on the edge
loops of buckskin. A decorated stick or long bone was run through these
loops to hold the covering together. In prehistoric times it is not
unlikely that long bone pins and flint so-called drills were used for
this purpose. Many of the so-called drills are too irregular in the
cross-section to have been of much service in the real drilling. And if
one inspects specimens in which the drilling was incomplete, one will be
surprised at the percentage of cores in the bottom of the holes. This is
especially true in the Mississippi Valley and the South, where wild
reeds and canes grow.
I cannot believe that we have satisfactorily explained these drills.
The generally accepted theory, indicated by the name we have given them,
that they were used in drilling, seems to me to be incorrect. I conclude
that more of them served as coat-fasteners, hairpins, and ornaments.
[Illustration:
FIG. 195. (S. 1–1.) Drills from Colorado sites. Materials: jasper and
chalcedony. Collection of Luther A. Norland, La Jara, Colorado.
]
One must not forget that both sexes of Indians wore their hair long and
ornamented the locks with copper bands, narrow strips of bead-work,
feathers, etc. Narrow beaded bands were popular among certain tribes,
not only as hair ornaments, but were worn across the forehead, while
ornamented tassels of various kinds hung down on either side, or behind.
It must be remembered that long, slender shell pins, not unlike the long
drills, were worn as hairpins. These could not by any possibility have
served as drills, as they are too fragile. Shell hairpins were easier to
make and, naturally, more common than those of flint or copper. The
manufacture of the long, slender, drill-shaped objects was no more
difficult than the making of fine flint implements, but it is my opinion
that there was greater risk of breakage.
Another class of perforators which will fall, on form, under the
classification presented above, was frequently called “reamers.”
Illustrations are presented of these in Figs. 198 and 203. Reamers
apparently were used for different purposes from the long drills. No
sensible man will conclude that they were both identical in purpose. A
reamer would be more effective for punching holes in soft, thin
substances and drilling shallow holes in wood. I suppose buckskin was
perforated by the means of bone awls, although the smaller reamer might
be used for such purposes. The shorter drills seem to me to be more
suitable for drilling in stone than the longer ones.
An ironclad classification on size and form is, from a mechanical and
technical point of view, impossible in this class of objects. The
reamers shown in Fig. 198 have both sharp and dull points and are
classed together. One may drill with a dull-pointed stone drill, not
with a sharp slender point. It will invariably break. The sharpest
reamers were for perforating, for lancing, etc., in soft substances,
such as leather and flesh.
There are in all museum collections many rough, thick perforators. It
would appear that these are more suitable for drilling than other forms.
I never believed that the long, slender, beautifully worked perforators
were used for perforating. I think that they would break; I have often
experimented to a limited extent with these and find that the rougher
drills shown in Fig. 194 are much better for drilling purposes than the
long slender ones.
Drills with stems expanding either gradually or suddenly, placed side by
side, would appear to one who was familiar with these things as quite
different objects. If the term “stem expanding suddenly” means that
these two belong to the same class and are used for an identical
purpose, one may with propriety retort that the real purpose is unknown
save by inference, that one does not believe that these two specimens
were used for precisely the same purpose.
[Illustration:
FIG. 196. (S. 2–3.) This cut shows seven drills representing the types
in our classification from all parts of the country. They are with
stem, without stem, stem expanding gradually, stem expanding
suddenly, notches in the side, base straight, concave, and convex.
Phillips Academy collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 197. (S. 1–1.) Three peculiar obsidian reamers with long stems
and short points. Collection of F. M. Gilham, Highland Springs,
California. The figure at the bottom is a pointed obsidian knife.
]
More skill, time, and care were required in the manufacture of these
more beautiful, delicate “drills,” than in the making of common
perforators. Again, the ancient Indians were saving and never
extravagant. It is to be thought that they would scarcely be so foolish
as to employ in a hazardous operation the finest implements in their
possession. Yet, if an Indian found it necessary to employ his finest
and most precious object in a ceremony or for the purpose of appeasing
the gods, or as a gift to the dead, he would not hesitate to do so. He
placed all such desires and thoughts first. This is characteristic of
Indian nature.
Witness Professor Holmes’s discovery of remarkable flint implements in a
spring near Afton, Indian Territory. His contention is that these were
gift offerings.[4]
[Illustration:
FIG. 198. (S. 1–1.) Five jasper and obsidian reamers or small drills.
Collection of C. F. Case, Sams Valley, Oregon.
]
We seldom find axes, pestles, spades, and grooved stone hammers in
mounds or graves. I never knew of more than two instances in the whole
United States where pestles were buried in ancient graves, and I never
knew of a single find of pitted hammer-stones in a prehistoric mound or
grave. This does not mean that the Indian regarded labor as beneath him.
It means that he drew a special line of demarcation between those ideals
which concerned his “mystery,” and the affairs of everyday life. His
religion, or as unthinking people have called it, his superstition, he
placed first.
He worshiped the Unknown in the air and sky above. Naturally, he showed
respect to the dead, and perhaps not so much to the person of the dead
as to that estate into which the deceased entered. Truly, one might say
that “nothing unclean or common” was placed by him with the dead, or
offered as a sacrifice to the spirits. For this very reason I maintain
that while the Indian would spend hours of rigorous laborious work upon
bringing to perfection certain art forms or weapons, he would not employ
these in the manufacture of commoner implements, ornaments, or other
forms. But on the contrary, prompted by his high regard for stone
objects of the character of these long and slender flint ornaments, he
made use of more serviceable and common things as tools. Therefore, it
was natural for him to select a reed, or a stout hickory stick, or a
heavy flint drill instead of an object that will chip or break in the
course of five or ten minutes drilling.
There is yet another use to which I believe some of the finest
perforators was put, which I state as my opinion merely.
Among the Crows, Mandans, Sioux, and other Indians were common, in the
days of Lewis and Clark, necklaces of long bones of three to four and
sometimes five inches in length arranged in parallel rows. These were
highly prized. One of these breast ornaments was presented to me by
Mah-een-gonce, a chief of the Ojibway, at a squaw dance in August, 1909,
at White Earth Reservation.
While it is my opinion that such objects as are shown in Figs. 199 and
202 were not used as drills, I should like to offer the suggestion that
they served other purposes. Perhaps they were made use of as hairpins,
possibly they were fastened to strips of buckskin, several of them being
worn in parallel rows. Mounted in that manner they would form unique
ornaments and appeal to aboriginal fancy.
CACHED FLINT OBJECTS
These would follow, according to classification, under knives and
projectile points without stem—“C,” more or less circular.
[Illustration:
FIG. 199. (S. 1–2.) Fifteen beautiful slender drills of chalcedony,
blooded quartz, and agate. Collection of W. P. Agee, Hope, Arkansas.
There were over two hundred of these drills found in one grave. They
range from two inches to four and a half inches in length. These
beautiful specimens doubtless represented an offering of some kind.
They are all of the same workmanship and represent as high an art in
flint-chipping as is to be found anywhere in the world.
]
In many portions of the United States deposits of flint implements have
been found. These were called caches from the obvious fact that they
were buried temporarily, and that in time the owners would seek them
again. Numbers of finds of caches reported during the past thirty years
are cited in the Bibliography, under “Caches” and also “Discs.” Although
many caches have been reported, there must have been an unknown number
discovered by farmers and laborers of which no record was ever kept. One
of the most important was a report by Dr. J. F. Snyder, of Virginia,
Illinois, and described at length in the _Archæologist_ (October, 1893).
The largest deposit was in mound number 22 of the Hopewell group, and
from this we took out 7532 flint discs about six inches in diameter and
a half inch thick, when we explored the group, in 1891–2. These are now
on exhibit in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. (See Fig.
42.) Squier and Davis had taken out about six hundred in 1845, and prior
to our official count, we gave to Mr. Hopewell and others about fifty,
so that the grand total was nearly eighty-five hundred. In the case of
the Hopewell deposit these discs represented a storage of raw material.
The discs were not placed in that mound as an offering. There were no
burials and no altars.
[Illustration:
FIG. 200. (S. 2–3.) Three splendid drills from the Andover collection.
From Ohio. Particular attention is directed to the one to the right
with the shoulders projecting horizontally. In the central one the
shoulders are curved upwards, a more common form than with the
shoulders horizontal.
]
Many years later I discovered the quarries on Little River, Tennessee,
eighteen miles south of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, whence, I am persuaded,
this flint was obtained. It was of the nodular variety, gray-blue in
character, and could be easily worked. The quarry showed signs of
extensive working.
[Illustration:
FIG. 201. (S. 1–2.) A fine pointed drill-lance (possibly used in
scarifying flesh, or opening sores) at the left; next, a rotary
point, almost drill-shaped; and a gracefully curved drill.
Collection of S. Van Rensselaer, Newark, New Jersey.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 202. (S. slightly less than 1–2.) Three fine drills from the
collection of S. Van Rensselaer, Newark, New Jersey.
]
After a thorough investigation I concluded that the ancient people had
quarried this flint, worked it down to convenient disc form for
distribution, and taking it in canoes down the Little River to the
Cumberland, down the Cumberland to the Ohio, up the Ohio to the Scioto,
and thence to North Fork of Paint Creek, landed it one half mile from
the Hopewell village. The distance by water would be seven or eight
hundred miles, as near as I can judge. If the material was not brought
in this manner, it must have been obtained by trade, and one can
scarcely conceive of over eight thousand discs weighing from one fourth
to two thirds of a pound each, being carried overland on the backs of
Indians from northwest Tennessee to central Ohio.
In spite of the great quantity of material stored in the Hopewell mound
referred to, yet most of the chipped objects on the village-sites of the
Hopewell group and in the mounds were made of Flint Ridge material,
instead of the nodular flint of the cache. My theory is that the deposit
was made in the last years of the occupancy of the Hopewell group, and
for that reason the Indians did not make general use of it.
[Illustration:
FIG. 203. (S. 1–1.) Peculiar reamer with very broad base. The stem is
wanting, the shoulders are squared. This form is rare. E. H.
Collins’s collection, Cherokee, Iowa.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 204. (S. 1–1.), one of those specimens difficult of
classification, is from Mr. Gibson’s collection, Schenectady. The
turned point is sometimes found in knives, seldom in drills. Quite
likely this specimen should appear in the knife-class; yet the point
(rare in that it is curved) is not unlike the reamers.
]
Deposits, or caches, contained not only discs but elaborate blades and
oval forms. The latter are the most common. The delicate leaf-shaped
blades found in many of the caches could have been used as knives
without further workmanship, or notched and barbed and employed as
spear- and lance-heads. More slender spears were produced by chipping
from the sides of the leaf-shaped implements and barbing. These caches
represented the stock in trade of the aboriginal merchant rather than
the possessions of a warrior or priest. If a warrior or chief, or any
other man, buried his possessions, we should find in that cache objects
not entirely of one class.
The number of these caches, their widespread extent, and the fact that
all of them tell the same story, are to my mind clear evidence that when
the greatest villages of ancient times from Pittsburg to Mandan, from
Lake Itasca to New Orleans, and from Bangor to Los Angeles, were
inhabited, there were numerous aboriginal traders and artisans who
traveled from point to point disposing of their wares.
Curiously enough, caches of other than chipped objects are extremely
rare, and I have never heard of a cache of bird-stones, problematical
forms, or of “bicaves.” There have been a few caches of axes and
hematites. Squier and Davis’s great find of two hundred pipes in an
altar of the “Mound-City” group near Chillicothe, Ohio, can hardly be
called a cache.