HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 313 



The crease referred to was possibly merely the notch wliicli 

 the sharp edge of the flint makes in the bone pressed repeatedly upon 

 it, rather than a specially jDrepared notch such as has been observed 

 by others in a few instances. 



One of the fullest and most graphic accounts of the manner of 

 making small arrowheads is that given by J. F. Sny- 

 statomenr''''''"' ^^^i'' ^^ iriggev Indian of Eldorado County, CaL, 

 having broken his arrowhead in shooting at a rabbit, 

 proceeded in IVIi-. Snyder's presence to make anothei- to take its 

 place. Searching in the stream bed whicli was at hand, he (luiclcl}'^ 

 obtained a fragment of quartz: 



Seating himself on a bowlder near mo, liis next move was to inifasten and 

 unwrap the sinew tliread from the end of the arrow shaft and detacli and 

 remove the piece of stone arrowhead remaining in it, for it had brolcen wlion 

 it struck the rocliy ground. He placed the thread of sinew in his mouth to 

 soften it and render it pliable. Then holding the quartz splinter on its edge 

 with his left hand, on a smooth bowlder as an anvil, he gently tapped the 

 stone, first on one edge, then on the other (a percussive process), striking 

 off a tiny chip at each stroke until he soon had it reduced approximately to 

 the dimensions he required. He had before seating himself removed his quiver 

 from his shoulder, and at this stage untied from its strap a buckskin string 

 that suspended the point of a deer's horn, 7 or 8 inches in length, notched 

 or grooved at its small end in a peculiar manner that I had not before noticed. 

 The savage saw that I was intensely interested in his work, and cxoculod 

 every movement deliberately and plainly in my view, as though he felt pride 

 in his knowledge of the stone art. Now spreading the broad tail llap on his 

 quiver in the palm of his left hand, with its inner or dressed side up he 

 placed upon it the quartz splinter he had blocked out, and held it firmly in 

 place with the two smaller fingers of the hand clasped over it. With the point of 

 his horn punch he then, by firm and careful pressure, broke from the edges flake 

 after flake from the point of the embryo arrowhead along to its base. Stop- 

 ping a moment to inspect the stone, he would reverse it and repeat the 

 cautious pressing on the other edge until directly its outline was that of the 

 ordinary leaf-shaped, flint implement. He now reversed his deerhorn punch, 

 when I noticed that it was ground, at its upper or large end, to an obtuse 

 or diamond point at one side, somewhat like that of a wood carver's bruin. 

 Applying this stout point, by the same mode of pressure as before, to each 

 side of the broad end of the stone alternately, the stone now resting for 

 solid support on the heavy muscles at the base of the thumb, he soon chipped 

 out the indented, lateral notches, defining the shank of the aiTowhead, which 

 was now finished as completely, and pei'fectly pi-oportioned, as any I over 

 saw. Fitting it in the cleft of the arrow shaft, he took the slender thong 

 from his mouth and soon had the new weapim securely fastened, his horn punch 

 tied to its place again, and, gathering up his quiver and bow. quickly vanished 

 from view. 



The whole process, from his selection of the stone adapted for his purpose to 

 the last tuck of the sinew strand in adjusting the finished implement to its 

 shaft, did not exceed 2.5 minutes of time.* 



1 Snyder, The Method of Making Stone Arrow Points, pp. 231-232. 



