388 ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



tlie mountains, there was a certain number or class who devoted their 

 time and attention to the manufacture of these darts. That as soon as 

 they had prepared a general supply, they left their mountain homes and 

 visited the sea-hoard and intermediate localities, exchanging their spear 

 and arrowheads for other articles not to be readily obtained in the region 

 where they inhabited. The further fact is stated that these persons 

 never mingled in the excitements of war ; that to them a free passport 

 was at all times granted, even among tribes actually at variance with 

 that of which they were members ; that their avocation was esteemed 

 honorable, and they themselves treated with universal hospitality. If 

 such was the case, it was surely a remarkable and interesting recogni- 

 tion of the claims of the manufacturer by an untutored race." * 



In a former section I have mentioned a Californian Indian of the 

 Shasta tribe, who was seen making arrowheads of obsidian by Mr. Caleb 

 Lyon. " The Indian," he says, " seated himself on the floor, and, placing 

 a stone anvil upon his knee, which was of compact talcose slate, with 

 one bloji^ of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian i)ebble into two 

 parts, then giving another blow to the fractured side he split oft' a slab 

 a fourth of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil 

 with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he commenced a series of 

 continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle 

 suljstance. It gradually assumed the required shape. After finishing 

 the base of the arrowhead (the whole being only a little over an inch 

 in length) he began striking gentler blows, every one of which I expected 

 would break it into pieces. Yet such was their adroit application, his 

 skill and dexterity, that in little over an hour he i^roduced a perfect 

 obsidian arrowhead. Amo7ig them arroic-maJcing is a distinct trade or 

 profession, ichich many attempt, hut in i^hich few attain excellence.'''' t 



Another method of arrow-making iiractised by the Californian Uibes 

 is mentioned by Mr, Edward E. Chever in an article published in the 

 '' American Naturalist," May, 1870. He has figured the imi^lement used 

 in the process (p. 139). " The arrow-head," he says, " is held in the left 

 hand while the nick in the side of the tool is used as a nipper to chip 

 oft' small fragments." 



Mr. Catlin gives an interesting and full account of the manufacture of 

 arrowheads among the Apaches and other tribes living west of or in the 

 Eocky Mountains. The following extract contains his principal state- 

 ments : " Erratic boulders of flint are collected (and sometimes brought 

 an immense distance) and broken with a sort of sledge-hammer made of 

 a rounded pebble of hornstone, set in a twisted withe, holding the stone 

 a-iid forming a handle. The flint, at the indiscriminate blows of the 

 sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces. The master- workman, seated 

 on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, 



* Jones (Charles C), Indian Remains in Southern Georgia. Address delivered hefore 

 the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, 1859, p. 19. . 



t Bulletin of the American Ethnological Society, New York, ISGl, Vol. I, p. 39. 



