388 ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



the 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 j)repared a general supply, they left their mountain homes and 

 visited the sea-board 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 thej' were members ; that their avocation was esteemed 

 honorable, and they themselves treated with universal hospitality. If 

 such was the case, it was surelj^ 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 blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two 

 parts, then giving another blow to the fractured side he split off 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 

 substance. 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 produced a perfect 

 obsidian arrowhead. Among them arroiv-maMng is a distinct trade or 

 profession, whicli many attempt, hut in which few attain excellence.''^ t 



Another method of arrow-making practised by the Californian tribes 

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

 " x\merican Naturalist," May, 1870. lie has figured the implement 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 

 off 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 horustone, set in a twisted withe, holding the stone 

 and 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 before 

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



f Bulletin of the American Ethnological- Society, New York, 18C1, Yol. I, p. 39. 



