PALEOLITHIC RACES i 7 



terminating at one end in a conical point, and at the other in 

 a base for attachment to the shaft. The base is fashioned in 

 several different ways : very commonly by slicing off the head 

 obliquely to its length, so as to afford a surface for making a 

 simple splice with the shaft ; sometimes, though almost exclu- 

 sively in deposits of the first stage, it is excavated by a wedge- 

 shaped fissure, evidently intended to fit on to a shaft with a 

 correspondingly wedge-shaped extremity ; in some cases this 

 last relation is reversed and the base forms a solid wedge, 

 which was probably inserted into a slit at the end of the 

 shaft. In a few rare examples the wedge is converted into a 

 tongue by which a square-shouldered joint is produced ; there 

 is no better joint, so far as security is concerned, than this, 

 and it is the kind exclusively adopted by the Eskimo and 

 some other hunting tribes at the present day. The union of 

 the head with the shaft was no doubt secured by threads of 

 sinew tightly bound round the joint. Finally there are some 

 simple points with a base which truncates the head trans- 

 versely ; perhaps with a view to providing a loose joint, so 

 that the head might readily break off in the wound, its con- 

 nection with the shaft being maintained by a separate cord. 



Both arrow-heads and spear-heads, especially the latter, are 

 usually adorned with some simple incised design, such as a 

 series of transverse lines, zigzags, or scroll work. This, as 

 Lord Avebury has pointed out in the case of Eskimo weapons, 

 served no doubt as a means of identification. Such marks of 

 ownership are commonly met with on the arrows of existing 

 wild races ; they provide a useful arbiter in the settlement of 

 disputes, such as arise from time to time in battle or the chase. 

 In fig. 5, on the right, two Eskimo are represented as quarrelling 

 over the carcase of a walrus which one of them has slain ; it is 

 to be hoped that the arrow bears the owner's mark. 



Some of the simple points are scored with a deep longitudinal 

 groove, sometimes called the blood-channel ; it has been sug- 

 gested that this may have been intended to carry poison. In 

 this connection it may be mentioned that some of the interior 

 tribes of British North America make use of poisoned arrow- 

 heads. The poisons are of various kinds, that obtained from 

 the fangs of the rattlesnake being the commonest and most 

 deadly. 1 



1 C. Hill Tout, British North America, p. 132 : London, 1907. 



2 



