250 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 



wooden .handle which shows the marks of a similar cutting instrument, 

 and is therefore a veritable specimen of the stone age. 



The Yellowstone Park has lately been stated to possess hills of obsid- 

 ian of different colors, which have afforded for ages the material for the 

 arrow-heads of the Indian tribes in the vicinity. 



The Hint knives of the Indians of the California peninsula are men- 

 tioned by Pacgert. 103 



As far away as the Admiralty Islands of the Papuan group we find ob- 

 sidian used for knives, razors, and spear-points. 109 The natives tie the 

 spear-heads to the shaft with plaited string coated with gum. The knife 

 used by the New Caledonians for carving the human body is called 

 nbouet, and is a flat serpentine stone oval in form and seven inches 

 in length. Iloles are bored in it, by which it is fastened to a wooden 

 handle. The New Caledonians eat their slain enemies, the women, who 

 are the cooks, following the army and dragging the bodies off the field 

 to prepare them for the supper of their returning husbands and broth- 

 ers. The palms being considered as tid-bits, are the perquisites of the 

 priests. Each part belongs to certain persons, and the carving is regu- 

 lated by rules. The body is opened by the nbouet and the intestines re- 

 moved with a fork made of two human arm bones sharply pointed and 

 lashed together. The women cooks prefer to truss the bodies in sitting 

 posture, bake them whole, and serve them in war costume. 



Many collections show knives of flakes of silex mounted in wooden and 

 horn backs, 110 and serrated knives or saws made by the insertion of flakes 

 of obsidian, flint, or shark's teeth in a grooved wooden back. Some 

 are mentioned later when referring to spears. Such are found in Cali- 

 fornia, Sweden, the Philippines, Australia, and elsewhere. The knife 111 

 dabba of I he Victorian blacks consists of quartz fragments attached to a 

 wooden handle with gum. 



Passing to knives of wood, we find none which would make impres- 

 sive illustrations; in the South Sea islands wood has been the prin- 

 cipal material; until lately stone was unknown in some islands, and 

 metal in almost all. The Fijian knife for cutting up baJcolo (long pig), as 

 the edible human body is called, was a sharp sliver of bamboo." 2 The 

 Ajitas of the Philippines and New Guineans also use the bamboo sliver. 113 

 The Sandwich Islanders have a battledore-shaped piece of wood" 4 bke 

 the meraiof the Maories, but armed on the edge with shark's teeth. It 

 was formerly employed in cutting up the bodies of warriors who fell in 

 battle, or of persons sacrificed. The Muudurucus of the Amazon use a 



108 Translation in Smithsonian Report, 16G3, p. 303. 

 IM Wood, vol. ii, p. 302. 



uojDesor. trans!, in Smithsonian Report, 1865, p. 360. 

 111 Smith's "Aborigines <>t Victoria." 



"- Sniyilu's " Ten Months in Fiji," p. 85. 

 111 Wood, vol. ii. ]>. 242. 

 l " Ibid., vol. ii, p. 435. 



