ABORIGINAL AMERICAN" ANTIQUITIES PART I 



295 



sli(nvn in figiiiv l^)i'> could lune been produced by the hunnnerstone, 

 but it is so attenuated that any severe or niisphiced stroke woukl cer- 

 tainly have been disastrous. It may be assumed that in the shaping 

 of such objects some pressure pi'ocess was employed, at least in the 

 final stages. Caleb Lyon, quoted in detail later, describes the making 

 of small arrowheads b}" a Calif(n-nia Indian, using the hammer alone. 

 Pie does not make it clear, however, that the shape was specialized 

 bej^oncl the simple outline of the triangular or leaf-shape blade; this 

 much was accomplished with the hammer by all makers of projectile 

 points. 



A most remarkable free-hand method of chipping stone by percus- 

 sion is described by Catlin ^ in a manner so circum- 

 stantial that its practice by at least one of the Apache 

 tribes can hardly l)e (|uestioned. The fragments or 

 flakes employed in arrowhead making v>'ere obtained as usual by 



Indiroct Free-hand 

 Porcnssion 



Fig. 150. Flint blmlc the specinlizatiou of which would exceed the capacity of the 



hanuncrstone. 



direct percussion Avith the hannnerstone. The elaboration of the 

 implement forms is described as follows: 



The master workman, seated on the ground, hays one of these flakes on the 

 pahn of his left hand, holding It firmly down with two or more fingers of the 

 same hand [fig. 1.57], and with his rigid hand, hetween the thumh and two fore- 

 fingers, places his chisel (or pnnch) on the point that is to he hrolvcn off, and 

 a co-opei'ator (a striker) sitting in front of him, witli a mallet of very hard 

 wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the ui)])er end. llak'iiig the llinl olf on 

 the under side, helow each i)ro,iccting point that is struck. The flint is then 

 turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side, and so turned 

 and chipped mitil the required shape and dimensions are ohtained, all the frac- 

 tures being made on the palm of the hand. . . . 



The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off 

 without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were 

 broken on a hard subslancc. These i)eo])le have no metallic instruments to 

 work with, and the instrument (punch) which they use, I was told, was a 

 piece of bone; but on examining it I found it to be a su])stanc(> much harder, 

 made of the tooth (incisoi-) of the si)erm-wliale or sea-lion, which are often 

 stranded on the coast of the Pacific. This punch is about d or 7 inches in 

 length and 1 inch in diameter, with one rounded side and two plane sides; 



^ Catlin, Last Rambles Among the Indians, p. 1S.3. 



