The Stone Ages of South Africa. 101 



One thing is quite certain, and that is, that however skilful they 

 may have been in the use of awls, the makers were not acquainted 

 with threading the tool, whereas the Aurignacian and the Magda- 

 lenian manufactured an extremely well-finished bone needle loith eye. 



One meets occasionally in the Rock-shelter where one or more of 

 these bodkins occur, the whetting-stone used for sharpening the 

 same, and the groove left leaves no doubt as to its purpose — see Cuts 

 2 and 13 of Fig. 185 in PI. XXV. — and occasionally also we find on 

 the face of rocks grooves similar to those represented in text-fig. 9, 

 the resulting cause of which is obvious. 



Text-fig. 10 represents the obverse and reverse of a sharpening 

 stone for bodkins, which could, in spite of its size, have been 

 portable, and, judging from its numerous grooves, it must have been 

 a much-used part of the house furniture. It wall be noticed that 

 these grooves are all narrow and never straight ; this conclusively 

 shows that they were cause 1 by the production of fine points only. 



Arrow-tips. 



One of the main purposes to which bone was put seems to have 

 been the manufacture of arrows ; its use for this purpose was 

 perhaps more general than its employment for awl making. 



The Bushman arrow consisted of a reed varying in length and 

 also in size," notched at one end, and having inserted at the other a 

 rounded piece of heavy bone ; the part round the notch and that 

 near the top being strengthened by lashings of fine sinew or gut. In 

 the reed is inserted a rounded piece of heavy bone, more or less 

 sharply pointed at each end, at the tip of which is fixed a triangular 

 piece of iron kept in its place by a resinous cement. At a short dis- 

 tance from the bone part of the shaft is a quill barb, and the whole is 

 besmeared from the iron tip to half the length of the bone shaft with 

 a thick layer of what purports to be poison (see Cut 1 of Fig. 142, 

 PI. XYIIL). This barb assists in keeping the poisoned part in the 

 wound if an attempt is made to dislodge the arrow, and the bone 

 shaft comes off' easily from the reed shaft. The triangular iron- 

 piece comes off as readily from the tip of the bone part, and the 

 extraction of the poisoned part becomes thus very difficult and 

 permits of the greater diffusion of the poison in the circulatory 

 system of the victim. 



That the use of the triangular iron tip is comparatively recent 



* There were two kinds of bows and arrows, with quivers appropriate to the size 

 of the latter. The long bow reaches a size of ] m. 65 cm. , the average height of a 

 Bushman, and the arrovv 82 cm. ; the short bow is less than 1 m. and the arrow 

 40 cm. 



