314 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[BULL. 60 



Mr. B. B. Redding has observed and recorded in gratifying detail 



the method of arrow making among the Wintoons of 



Wintoons : Cloiid Kiver, Oreg. Three processes and three types 



Redding's Obser- p ^ • -i , • i -> r>n "/\ 



nations of sha])ing implements are mvolved, as tollo\Ys: («) 



Making flakes with hammer and pnnch;^ (h) shap- 

 ing the blades b,y free-hand pressure with a large bone flaker; (c) 

 breaking out notches with rocking pressure of a small flaker. The 

 demonstration was made by an old man named Consohiln who — 



broii;j:ht, tied up in a deerskin, a piece of obsidian wei.uiiint;' al>oiit a pound, a 

 fragment of a deerliorn split from a iironji: lengthwise, al)out 4 inches in length 

 and half an inch in diameter, and ground off squarely at the ends — this left each 

 end a semicircle, besides two deer prongs (Caridciis rolinitlniniux) wi(h the 

 points ground down into the shape of a square, sharp-jiointed file, one of these 



being much smaller than 

 the other. He had also 

 some pieces of iron wire 

 tied to wooden handles 

 and ground into the same 

 shapes. These, he ex- 

 plained, he used in pref- 

 erence to the deer prongs, 

 since white men came to 

 the country, because they 

 were harder and did not 

 requir e sharpening so 

 frequently. 



The first step w^as 

 to strike otf flakes 

 from the obsidian 

 block by percussion, 

 using a hammerstone 

 and a piece of deerhorn. This part of the demonstration has already 

 been given under indirect percussion. Having obtained a suitable 

 flake, the worlanan proceeded to shape the arroAvhead. 



He now squatted on the ground, sitting on his left foot, his right leg extended 

 in a position often assumed by tailors at work. He then placed in the palm of 

 his left hand a piece of thick, well-tanned buckskin, evidently from the 

 skin of the neck of a deer. It was tlii<'k but soft and pliable. On this he laid 

 the flake of obsidian, which he hekl firndy in its place by the first three fingers 

 oC the same hand. He then rested the elbow on the left knee, which gave the 

 left arm and hand holding the flake firm and steady supiiort. He then took in 

 his right hand tlie larger of the two deer prongs, which, as has l)een stated, had 

 its point sharpened in the form of a square file, and holding it as an engraver 

 of wood holds his cutting instrument, he commenced reducing one edge of the 

 circular form of the flake to a straight line. With the thumb of the right 

 hand resting on the edge of the left palm as a fulcnnu [fig. 179], the point of the 

 deer prong would be made to rest on about an eighth of an inch or less of 

 the edge of the flake, then with a firm downward pressure of the point, a 



^ Description of this work appears under Percussion Processes, pp. 295-297. 



Fig. 179. Positiim hi chippins with a hi 

 Wintoons. (I5eckwith.) 



point by the 



