HOLMEsl ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 321 



that the notch may bo nothing more than the shallow groo\e pro- 

 duced by continued use of the flaker on the sharp edges ol the stone 

 worked. 



A second distinctive or exceptional method of free-hand pressure 

 shaping practiced by the California Indians is described by Powers: 



It was ot'tt'ii a source of wonder to me how tlie delicate arrowliea<ls used on 



war arrows, with tlieir lont;, thin points, could be made 

 [Viard : I'owers] without breakin,!; them to pieces. The Viard proceed in the 



following manner: Taking a piece of jasper, chert, obsidian, 

 or connnon Hint, which breaks sharp-cornered and with a conchoidal fracture, 



they heat it in the tire and then cool it slowly, which splits 

 [Fracture by ik'at] it in flakes. The arrow maker then takes a flake and gives it 



an approximate rough shape l:»y striking it with a kind of 

 hanuner. lie then slips over his left hand a piece of buckskin, with a hole to 

 tit over the thumb (this buckskin is to prevent the hand from being wounded), 

 and in his right hand he takes a pair of buckhorn pincers, tied together at the 

 point with a thong. Holding the piece of Hint in his left hand, he breaks off 

 from the edge of it a tiny fragment with the pincers by a twisting or wrenching 

 motion. The piece is often reversed in the hand, so that it may be worked away 

 .symnu'trically. Ai'rowhead manufacture is a specialty, just as arrow mnking, 

 medicine, and other arts.^ 



Belcher, who Avitnessed arrow making among the Eskimo of Icy 

 Cape, gives the following accomit of the work: 



I'ossihly. liiid I not witnessed the operation and had been at the time one of 

 the first Europeans with whom they ever had connnunica- 



[Rcstl'ri'ssure: ^.^ ^j^^ .^^^^^ would have remained undisputed that they 



Eskniio] 



owed their formation to the stroke of the hanuner. Being a 



working amateur mechanic myself, and having practiced in a very similar man- 

 ner on glass with a penny piece in 1815, I was not at all surprised at witnessing 

 the modus operandi. Selecting a log of wood in which a spoon-shaped cavity 

 was cut, they placed the splinter to be worked over it, and 

 [Flaking in a y^^, pressing gently along the margin vei'tically, first on one 

 Siioou-shaped Cav- .\ , . , . , . ^ , i ^ , i 



jj -, Side and then on the other, as one would set a saw, they 



splintered off alternate fragments until the object thus pi-op- 

 erly outlined presented the spear or jirrow head form, with two cutting ser- 

 rated edges. 



This instrument has a graceful outline. The handle is of line fossil ivory. 

 That would be too soft to deal with the Hint or chert in the manner required. 

 But they discovered that the point of the deerhorn is harder and also more 

 .stubborn; therefore, in a slit, like U-ad in our pencils, they introduci'd a slip 

 of this substance and secured it by a strong thong, put on wet, but which on 

 drying became very rigid. Here we can not fail to trace ingenuity, ability, and 

 a view to ornament. It is the point of the deerhorn which, i-efusing to yield, 

 drives off the fine conchoidal splinters fnmi the chert. 



I can not here omit remarking that the very same process is pursued by the 



Indians of Mexican origin in California with the obsidian 

 [Pacific Islands] points for their arrows; and also in the North and South 



Pacific — at Sandwich Islands (21° north), and TahKi (18" 

 soutli) — "9° or 2,340 miles asunder — similar indentations or chippings are car- 



1 Powers, Tribes of California, p. 104. 



