58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



Du Pratz may also intend to convey the information that flints were 

 used for this purpose, but his hmguage is too indeterminate to be 

 relied upon." 



For axes they employed "' deep gray stones of fine grain, almost 

 like touchstone," They were ground down on pieces of sandstone 

 {(jrais). 



These stone axes are fully an inch thick at the head [or butt], and half an 

 inch thick three quarters of the way down. The edge is beveled, but not sharp, 

 and may be 4 iuches wide except that the head is only 3 inches wide. This 

 head is pierced with a holv '^ large enough to pass the finger through in order 

 to be better bound in the cleft at one end of the handle, and this end itself 

 is well bound so as not to split farther.'' 



Knives were ordinarily made of a rather small variety of cane. 

 This was split into four pieces, each of which made a knife that cut 

 very well for a little while. New ones had to be obtained constantly, 

 but the canes from which they were manufactured were very connnon. 



Du Pratz says of these : 



The canes or reeds of which I have spoken so often may be considered of 

 two kinds. The one grows in moist places, to a height of 18 to 20 feet and as 

 large as the fist. The natives make of them mats, sieves, little boxes, and 

 many other articles. The others, which grow in dry lands, are neither as 

 high nor as large, but they are so hard that these people used split portions 

 of these canes, which they call consliac [the Mobilian term], with which to cut 

 their meat before the French brought them knives/^ 



He also states that a kind of meal was obtained from the larger 

 variet_y out of which they made bread or porridge.'' 



They make bows of acacia wood which is hard and easy to split. They furnish 

 them with cords made of the bark of trees.'' They fashion their arrows from 

 wood of the tree which bears this name and which is very hard. The points are 

 put into the fire to harden. ^^ 



Feathers were fastened to these arrows by means of fish glue. 

 Arrows for killing birds or small fishes were made out of little pieces 

 of hard cane, but those intended for the bison or the deer were 

 armed with great splinters of bone adjusted in a split end of the 

 arrow shaft, the cleft ami the casing being bound w^ith splints of 

 feathers and the whole soaked in fish glue. War arrows were ordi- 

 nai'ily armed with scales of the garfish {j)(>iss()n-(inn('')'^ fixed in place 

 in the same maimer. Arrows intended for large fish, such as the carp 

 sucker or catfish, were merely pro\ ided with a bone pointed at both 

 ends '• so that the first point pierces and makes an entrance for the 



"Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louisiano, ii, 165. 



''Professor Holmes says, however, that among the archeological remains ul" Anicrii'a no 

 ax of this Ivind lias heen found. 



<■ Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louisianc, ii, IGG. 



■' Ibid., .5S-.5!), 107. 



« .\ls() of steeped and twisted sinew. 



' Du Pratz, Hist, de La L-juisiane, ii, 1(!7. 



« In n)i(l,. l.".(i, lie says " the t;ii! " of (lie varfish. 



