FISH-HOOKS. 139 



would roll up a piece of paper by carefully beginning at the edge. It is not only 

 an entirely unique and heretofore unnoticed method of aboriginal workmanship, 

 but also in the nature of corroborative evidence that all our copper implements 

 were produced by hammering." The swelling of the shank was perhaps pro- 

 duced intentionally, for the purpose of affording a hold to the line. Mr. Mann 

 has a copper awl fashioned by a similar process. " These two implements," he 

 says, " along with others not made in the same way, and many un worked small 

 bits of copper, were found in loose white sand, near the mouth of the Oconto 

 River, Green Bay, Wisconsin. The consistency of the soil accounts for the 

 unusually good preservation." 



Considering that fishing Avith hook and line was commonly practised by the 

 North American tribes at the time of their first contact with Europeans, the 

 comparative scarcity of fish-hooks in the territory formerly occupied by them is 

 remarkable. May not the natives also have made fish-hooks out of substances 

 more liable to decay than bone, horn or shell, not to speak of copper, which was but 

 rarely used ? The people of the Northwest Coast, for instance, make even at 

 present hooks for catching halibut and other fish entirely of spruce-wood ; and 

 the Mohaves in Arizona, until lately, utilized bent cactus-spines as fish-hooks. 

 A number of these were sent to the National Museum by Dr. Edward Palmer, 

 three of which are represented in Figs. 217, 218, and 219. 



Fio. 218. 



FIGS. 217-219. Fish-hooks made of cactus-spines. Mohaves, Arizona. (24133). 

 He thus describes their manufacture : 



" Questioning some old Indians about their native fish-hooks, I found that 

 they used the spine of a cactus for this purpose. Having made a bargain with 

 one to allow me to see him make the hooks, he returned in a few hours with a 

 plant and a number of the spines of Echinovactus Wislizeni. He commenced by 

 placing the spines in water for a short time, in order to render them pliable, at 



