464 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



were probably ornaments. Their peculiar relation to lapidary art 

 consists of the fine workmanship required to reduce them to their 

 extreme thinness. They are only slightly thicker than an eggshell. 

 This specimen is only one out of a series showing the extreme delicacy 

 of the lapidary art with which they were made. Some of them are in 

 the form of cylinders I inch in diameter, IJ inches in length, the hole 

 drilled and enlarged until the body is not more 

 than sV inch, so thin as to appear almost unable 

 to sustain itself. 



PaUi-patu. — An interesting series of jade ob- 

 jects the manufacture of which bears an intimate 

 relation to lapidary art and about which there has 

 been some discussion is the war club with various 

 names according- to the following localities : Tatu- 

 patu, or merai, in New Zealand 5 macana in Mex- 

 ico, and slubbets in Puget Sound and Alaska. 

 They have been made of various materials — hard 

 wood, w^halebone, copper, or bronze — but that 

 which most concerns us here is the fact that they 

 were many times made of some of the species of 

 jade or other hard stone. 

 The greatest number of 

 these implements are from 

 New Zealand, Avhere they are made principally 

 of jade or some of its varieties or of some other 

 hard stone; yet similar imj)lements, also of hard 

 stone have been found in Mexico and in the 

 western United States. The United States Na- 

 tional Museum possesses a specimen, reported 

 as having been dug from a 

 mound by Capt. J. B. Al- 

 drich in 180G. The mound "'"'"'"^• 



was situated just south of the Arkansas Eiver, 

 near the thirty-eighth ijarallel, in Bent County, 

 southeast Colorado. Although the report as to 

 the finding of this specimen in Colorado was well 

 authenticated, yet it seemed hardly sufficient to 

 overcome the supi)osed universal testimony that 

 these peculiar implements belonged to New Zea- 

 land. It was believed to be more likely that an 

 error had been made in the report or in the identity of the implement 

 than that an object common to New Zealand should have been unearthed 

 in a mound in Colorado. But further examination puts a different 

 l)liase upon the affair. Mr. James Wickershnm, in a paper entitled 

 "An aboriginal war club," published' in 1895, reports the discovery of 



Fig. 115. 



STATUETTE OP OBSIDIAN 

 SMOOTHED AND POLISHED. 



Mexico. 



Cat. Nu. 98976, U.S.N. M. i^ nat- 

 ural size. 



Fig. 116. 

 HEAD OF COYOTE, OBSIDIAN, 

 SMOOTHED AND POLISHED, 

 PROBAI5LY A CHARM, DRILL- 

 ED FOR SUSPENSION. 



Mexico. 



Cat. Ni.. i(.s^S7'.^ II.S.N.M. Nat- 



Fig. 117. 

 LABRET (LIP ORNAMENT) OF 

 OBSIDIAN, SMOOTHED AND 

 HIGHLY POLISHED. 



Face and edge views. 

 Mexico. 



Cat. No. i!7902, U.S.N.M. }■;, iiat- 



' The Anieiit au Auti(]uarian, XVII, p. 72. 



