NORTH AMERICAN BOWS, ARROWS, AND QUIVERS. 659 



the bone avjis stronj^ly pressed against the under edge of the proposed 

 arrowhead, and a little splinter of obsidian worked off. The oi>eration 

 was similar to the opening of a can with one of the old fashioned can 

 openers that work without leverage. Oftentimes materuil is spoiled in 

 the sharpening. Around deserted camps piles of rejected fragments 

 are sometimes found, either broken in putting on the edge or not being 

 near enough the desired shape to pay for working np. 



"A good deal of the sharpener's work, too, consisted in freshening up 

 the edges of points blunted by use. 



"One arrow-head, weather-worn by exposure, was shown me, with a 

 border of fresh fractures extending from one-eighth to one-fourth of an 

 inch in from the edge, where the sharpener's tool had been. 



"There results from this process a serrated edge, which in the best 

 specimens is beautifully tine and regular, but in rougher tools is often 

 coarse. The old workman was careful of his stock in trade, and rolled 

 up the fruit of his industry in a piece of ragged blanket to prevent its 

 being injured while in transit from jdace to place."* 



In this charming bit of description the old man played the following 

 roles : 



(1) Discriminating the best pieces of stone to work, mineralogist. 



(2) Obsidian knai)i)er, stone-breaker. 



(3) Flaker, with deer-horn tool working on the palm. 



(4) As retouching injured blades, repairer of arrow-heads. 



(5) Preserver of forms, a kind of wild Vishnu, laying np against 

 future work all his stock in trade. 



There seems to be little modern testimony to the assertion that the 

 savage had learned to bevel the sides of his arrow heads alternately, for 

 the purpose of making his arrow revolve in the air. Mr. Cushing has 

 shown that this alternate beveling of the edges was a natural result of 

 holding- the i)iece of stone in a certain way along the thumb during the 

 operation of chipping. 



Lieut. Kay was the first to actually send to the National Museum a 

 bit of antler, 6 inches long and about three quarters of an inch in 

 diameter, to be used like a stonecutter's launch or pitching tool or a 

 smith's ininch in knocking off chips in the process of arrow-making, f 

 But there are constant references to this intermediary tool. The writer, 

 who has experimented in most aborginal stone-working methods, has 

 not attempted to use this apparatus in order to know its limits. 



The substitution of hoop iron and other metal and glass for arrow- 

 heads was one of the iirst lessons of acculturation learned by the Ameri- 

 can tribes. No custom or fashion was violated by this; the shaft and 

 feather, that is, the manual part of the arrow, and all social and mythic 

 portions' remained unchanged. f This is the universal law of transfer 

 from lower to higher grades. It is for the reason that woman's arts 

 merely take better tools to do the very same work that savage women 

 are easier to elevate than men. 



* H. G. Dulog, in Forest and Streavi. 



t See Smithsonian Report, 1886. 



X Cf. Timberlake, quoted by Jones, So. Indians, 251 ; Lawsou, 252. 



