FROM CALIFORNIA. 33 



wood, with protruding spikes made of tbiu sheet iron, the whole 

 decorated with bands and strips of red cloth. 



A very interesting case of the fetichistic use of what appears to be a 

 genuine war club is recorded by Col. Garrick Mallery in a paper en- 

 titled "Pictographs of North American Indians," in the Fourth Annual 

 Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1SS2-'S3, p. 20i, 18SG. The pictograph 

 represents a Sioux holding one of the ordinary solid stone headed clubs 

 upright before his body in order to ward off the arrow of his assailant 

 w T ho is portrayed in the act of bending his bow. To some extent, at 

 least, the weapon is here divested of its ordinary function and invested 

 with secondary and peculiar properties. The case is of particular 

 interest in the present connection, since, when once invested with the 

 idea of a charm or fetich, the further step to a fetichistic use by a 

 medicine man, or to a purely ceremonial use by a chief, and to other 

 similar functions, would follow in the natural course of evolution. 

 When intended solely for the latter functions form and size would 

 naturally be modified, slightly at first, but more and more iu the lapse 

 of time, until at length both head and handle might become so changed 

 as to be practically unfitted for use in war. Such may have been the 

 origin of the ceremonial stones of Xew Guinea and other regions. 



Recurring to the question of the origin of perforated stones, it is to be 

 remarked that proof of their general use as weapons appears to be want- 

 ing, and it is doubtful indeed whether if in some parts of the world, as, 

 for instance, iu the United States, they have ever been thus employed. 

 Even could it be safely assumed that their primary use everywhere has 

 been that of weapons, it would increase rather than diminish the diffi- 

 culties of understanding some of their secondary functions, as, for in- 

 stance, a weight to a digging stick. From a weapon to a ceremonial 

 staff or to a badge of authority, the transition is easy and natural, but 

 the step from a weapon to a domestic implement is a much longer one 

 and so unnatural that we may feel tolerably sure that the first function 

 must be long forgotten ere the second is rendered possible. 



The several very different uses to which perforated stones have been 

 put in various parts of the world, to say nothing of their different pat- 

 terns, would seem to suggest that the course of their evolution has va- 

 ried as widely as their uses. Instead of having originated at a single 

 center, and instead of having a single original function, they, like many 

 other implements, probably originated at many independent centers, 

 where the ideas that suggested them and the functions to which they 

 were put may have been very different. Nor is it likely, if we are to 

 judge by the several uses they have subserved in California in the same 

 general locality, that they have anywhere been confined to a single 

 function. The complete differentiation of implements and their limita- 

 tion solely or mainly to one use is only possible in a state of high civ- 

 ilization like our own, where, indeed, specialization of function is rarely 

 complete. Among barbarous people the specialization of form and 

 p s 3 



