466 



FLINT DISKS FOOD 



[ B. A. E. 



dissimilarity the distinctions are due al- 

 most entirely to manner of formation 

 and included foreign substances. Such 

 impurities, though they make up a very 

 small percentage of the stone, produce 

 upon exposure to atmospheric influences 

 an infinite variety of coloring and great 

 diversity of texture. The flints as thus 

 defined were extensively employed by 

 the aborigines in the manufacture of 

 chipped implements, and the implements 

 themselves are sometimes referred to as 

 "flints." See Chalcedony, Chert, Quartz, 

 Mines and Quarries. (g. f. w. h. h. ) 



Flint disks. Flatfish objects of circu- 

 lar, elliptical, or almond-like outline pro- 

 duced by chipping away the outer por- 

 tions of nodules having these approximate 

 forms. The question has been earnestly 

 debated whether these and kindred forms 

 were for any practical or economic use, or 

 whetherthey had some occult significance 

 as votive offerings. They are very seldom 

 found iu graves and 

 infrequently on vil- 

 lage sites or about 

 shops where imple- 

 ments were made. 

 INIany of them are 

 of the blue nodular 

 hornstone found in s. 

 Illinois, in the vicini- 

 ty of Wyandotte cave 

 in s. Indiana, and 

 in w. Kentucky and 

 Tennessee, but no record has yet been 

 made of the discovery in large numbers 

 of such disks in any of these localities 

 except the first. The range in size is 

 generally from 3 to 8 in. in length or 

 diameter, though a few exceed the latter 

 dimension. The finest specimen known 

 is from Tennessee; it is almost exactly 

 circular, made of the Stewart co. flint, 

 about 1 in. thick and 9 in. across. Flint 

 disks as well as the more leaf-like blades 

 are usually found in deposits or caches 

 containing numerous nearly identical 

 specimens. See Cache disks and blades, 

 Storage and CacJies. (w. h. h. ) 



Florida Indians. A term almost as 

 vague as the ancient geographic concep- 

 tion of Florida itself, used (Doc. Col. 

 Hist. N. Y., VI, 243, 1855) to designate 

 Indians who robbed a vessel stranded 

 on the Florida keys in 1741-42. School- 

 craft (Ind. Tribes, vi, 47, 1857) refers to 

 it as a term vaguely applied to the "Apa- 

 lachian group of tribes." (a. s. g. ) 



Flowpahhoultin. As small body of Sal- 

 ish of Fraser superintendencv, Brit. Col., 

 in 1878.— Can. Ind. Aff., 79,' 1878. 



Flunmuda. A former village, presum- 

 ably Costanoan, connected with Dolores 

 mission, San Francisco, Cal. — Taylor in 

 Cal. Farmer, Oct. 18, 1861. 



Flint Disk; Tennessee, 

 (diam., 9 IN.) 



Focomae. A Dieguefio rancheria rep- 

 resented in the treaty of 1852 at Santa 

 Isabel, s. Cal.— H. R. Ex. Doc. 76, 34th 

 Cong., 3d sess., 132, 1857. 



Folk-lore, See Mytholocju. 



Fond du Lac. A Chippewa band re- 

 siding on St Louis r. , near Fond du Lac, 

 E. Minnesota. They are now under the 

 White Earth agency, numbering 107 in 

 1905. (j. M.) 



Food. The areas occupied by the In- 

 dians may be classed as supplying, pre- 

 dominantly, animal food, vegetalfood, and 

 mixed diet. . No strictlines separate these 

 classes, so that in regions where it is com- 

 monly said that the tribes are meat eaters 

 exclusively, vegetal food is also of impor- 

 tance, and vice versa. Vegetal food stuffs 

 are (1) preagricultural, or the gather- 

 ing of self-sown fruits, nuts, seecls, and 



MONO WOMEN HARVESTING SEEDS. (SANTA FE RAILWAY) 



roots; and (2) agricultural, or {a) the 

 raising of root crops, originating in the 

 harvesting of roots of wild plants, and 

 (5) of cereal products, consisting chiefly 

 of maize (q. v. ) grown by the majority of 

 the tribes, and wild rice (q. v. ) in the 

 area of the u{)per lakes, where a sort of 

 semiagriculture was practised to some 

 extent. (See Agriculture. ) 



Animal food was obtained from the 

 game of the environment, and the settle- 

 ment and movements of some tribes de- 

 pended largely on the location or range 

 of animals, such as the buffalo, capable of 

 furnishing an adequate food supply; while 

 on the other hand, the limit of habitat of 

 water animals, as the sahnon, tended to 

 restrict the range of other tribes to the 

 places where the supply could be gath- 

 ered. No pure hunter stage can be found, 

 if it ever existed, for while the capture of 

 animals devolved on the man and the 

 preparation of food on the woman, the 

 latter added to the diet substances derived 

 from the vegetal kingdom. Similarly no 

 purely agricultural stage with exclusively 



I 



