102 Annals of the Soutli African Museum. 



would seem to be proved by the illustration Fig. 142, where the 

 arrows are respectively tipped with quartz and glass chips. In 

 Cuts 2 and 3 of the same figure heavy wood has been used instead 

 of bone. But this is an exception, due perhaps to special circum- 

 stances. It may be taken for granted that that part of the arrow^s 

 w^as made of bone. 



Whetstones. 



These bone arrow pieces are, however, rarer than the awls, unless 

 some of the cylindrical bone bodkins, which I take to have been 

 awls, have been used as arrow-points, which is not improbable ; but 

 the grooved stones serving for reducing the piece of bone into the 

 required shape are not uncommonly met with, and they complete 

 the series of the South African neolithic (modern) industry. 



The groove is always longitudinal ; the shape of the stone itself 

 extremely variable ; and it may also be said of these stones that no 

 two specimens are alike. That many formed part of the -'kit" of 

 the hunter is probable, as the care bestowed on some of them is 

 great. Some have one groove only, Cuts 4, 5, 7, 8 of Fig. 171, 

 PI. XXIII. ; others have two. Cut 6 ; Cut 3 shows three grooves on 

 each side; the flat specimen, Cut 1, has several grooves on both 

 faces. These grooves are too deep to admit of their having been 

 used for fashioning sharply pointed awls. 



It has been suggested that these utensils were arrow-straighteners. 

 Not only is it forgotten that the shaft of a Bushman arrow is made 

 of reed, and was therefore straight, but not one of the many 

 examples examined by me has an absolutely straight groove, and 

 this groove is never deep enough to accommodate the whole circum- 

 ference of the reed-part of an arrow. Moreover, instead of being 

 cylindrical and of the same diameter throughout, the ends are always 

 pointed or narrower than the centre, and in most instances the 

 centre of the groove is not cylindrical. 



It is somewhat amusing to read of the " should have been " process. 



Thus Goch :■'■ " This is used to straighten bone and reed arrows, 

 by heating the stone red-hot, and placing the arrow-shaft in the 

 groove, then rubbing another hot pebble with pressure up and down 

 it, and so taking out the twist of the reed." The author forgets to 

 tell how the rubbing hot pebble was held. 



The explanation given by Dunn would seem to be more 

 plausible : t " These stones are used by first heating them in the 

 fire, and then rubbing the fresh-cut reed along the groove until it is 



• Journ. Anthr. Inst., xi., pts. 1 and 2, 1881. 

 t Trans. S. Afric. Phil. Soc, ii., 1880, p. 20. 



