368 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



thongs run through the holes that slant from the ends into the base. 

 This object may have been a helmet or headdress ; it may have been 

 the wooden base of a roach spreader worn in the middle of the crest 

 of hair. The bird stone may have been the body that supported a 

 duck or other bird effigy on the stem of a calumet, it may have 

 been a fetish used on bundles of arrows (a Navajo custom), or it 

 may have been a canoe ornament (the Eskimo having a similar 

 object made of bone). Again the bird stone may have been used in 

 certain games as, for example, on a snow snake for an ornamental 

 weight, or it may have been used on a float used as a fishing bob, to 

 insure success in fishing. Another theory is that they were placed 

 on canoe paddles. 



Fig. 52 Bird stone of schist found by W. L. Stone, Saratoga. 2-3 



One observation concerning bird stones is worthy of attention. 

 The basal perforations and the transverse bars sometimes found 

 indicate that the bird stone was fastened or tied to some thin object 

 and that the thongs that fastened the object ran through the resting 

 base, and under it. If a bird stone were tied to the cover of a 

 birch bark box or to a thin section of wood or leather the method 

 of fastening would at once be clear. 



Schoolcraft thought bird stones were parts of the handles of 

 knives and indeed they do bear a resemblance to certain Labrador 

 forms made of wood. 



Blades, bone. These are flat, smooth pieces of bone with rounded 

 or spatulate ends. Many are highly polished as if they had been 

 used in smoothing other articles. We saw a bone blade in the hands 

 of a Seneca woman as late as 1912, and used as a porcupine quill 

 flattener, the quills being used for embroidery. Some no doubt 

 were potters' tools. Bone blades are more commonly Iroquois than 

 Algonkian, though some have been found in Jefferson county on 

 Algonkian sites. Some are engraved. 



Boat stones. A name applied to perforated boat-shaped stones 

 of polished slate or other soft stone. The perforations are placed in 

 the middle of the object at a short distance apart (about an inch) and 

 equidistant from the ends. The under side is more or less deeply 



