ABORIGINAL CHIPPED STONE IMPLEMENTS OF NEW YORK 39 



use staves like unto javelins, headed with bone. With these they 

 dart fish swimming in the water.' This, however, may have been 

 like the early Iroquois bone harpoon, barbed only on one side. The 

 wooden sword, worn on the back, and sometimes with a deer's antler 

 inserted, was mentioned by him, but no farther described. A strong 

 point in regard to use is that on no Iroquois site in New York, has 

 any early article been found which could be called a stone spear- 

 head. At an early day they were abundant. 



On the other hand, in his picture of Atotarho, David Cusick 

 placed a spear in the hand of one of the messengers. Bruyas has 

 allusions to spears in his early Mohawk lexicon, and their occasional 

 use may be inferred from the Jesuit relations, but somewhat obscurely. 

 The Iroquois sword, whatever that may have been, was often men- 

 tioned. Schoolcraft gives the word for spear in several Iroquois dia- 

 lects, and Zeisberger uses for lance the name which appears in 

 another lexicon, half a century earlier. One Virginia picture has 

 indians with fishing spears, but these are described as having wooden 

 points, not metal or stone. A weapon so useful was not likely to be 

 abandoned until a substitute was found, but it seems certain that the 

 large stone spear-head was not generally in use here three hundred 

 years ago. History and archeology agree in this. 



This is another of the curious proofs of a change in race and 

 occupation. Iroquois and Algonquin alike seem to have known 

 little of the higher stone art of their predecessors, and a weapon once 

 everywhere abundant, had almost ceased to exist. A sweeping 

 change had passed over the land, and the new comers did not inherit 

 the arts of the old. If they did not, how could they have been their 

 descendants? Allowing for every resemblance, there is still a wide 

 gulf between the indian of our northern and eastern states, as first 

 known to the whites, and those who preceded him. This difference 

 can only be fully appreciated by those who have early sites of a 

 known age, to examine. 



Spear-heads vary greatly in character, and still more in size, if we 

 make the minimum two and one half inches in length. In many 

 places this would compel us to reckon more spears than arrows; and 

 if we remember the vast numbers carried off — for these naturally 



