Southern France, gave an account, furnished to him by Sir Charles Lyell, of the process of making stone arrow-heads by the Shasta Indians of California who still commonly use them, which slightly differs from that of Mr. Peale. This account by Mr. Caleb Lyon runs as follows:—"The Indian seated himself upon the floor, and, laying the stone anvil upon his knee, with one blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts, then giving a blow to the fractured side he split off a slab a quarter of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against his anvil with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he commenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually seemed to acquire shape. After finishing the base of the arrow-head (the whole being little over an inch in length), he began striking gentle blows, every one of which I expected would break it in pieces. Yet such was his adroit application, his skill and dexterity, that in little over an hour he produced a perfect obsidian arrow-head. . . . . No sculptor ever handled a chisel with greater precision, or more carefully measured the weight and effect of every blow than did this ingenious Indian; for even among them, arrow- making is a distinct profession, in which few attain excellence." Dr. Rau[1] has, however, pointed out that this account of the manufacture requires confirmation; but Mr. Wyeth[2] states that the Indians on the Snake River form their arrow-heads of obsidian by laying one edge of the flake on a hard stone, and striking the other edge with another hard stone; and that many are broken when nearly finished and are thrown away.
Captain John Smith,[3] writing in 1606 of the Indians of Virginia, says, "His arrow-head he maketh quickly with a little bone, which he ever weareth at his bracert,[4] of any splint of stone or glasse in the form of a heart, and these they glew to the end of their arrowes. With the sinewes of deer and the tops of deers' horns boiled to a jelly, they make a glue which will not dissolve in cold water."
Beyond the pin of bone already mentioned, as having been found in one of the pits at Grime's Graves, I am not aware of any bone or horn implements of precisely this character, having
- ↑ "Articles on Anth. Sub.," 1882, p. 9.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. p. 212.
- ↑ Sixth voyage, "Pinkerton's Travels," vol. xiii. p. 36, quoted also in "Flint Chips," p. 79.
- ↑ Bracer, a girdle or bandage.
