284 ART IN SHELL OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS. 



Tennessee are confined to a limited area. It thus seems especially un- 

 fortunate that so little is known of the history of the type specimen 

 given in Plate LVIII, as without assurance of the correctness of the 

 statement that it is from Mississippi we cannot make use of it to show 

 geographical distribution. In reference to this point, however, we have 

 a few very interesting facts which make the occurrence of specimens in 

 localities as widely separated as the "Cumberland Eiver" and ''Mis- 

 sissippi " seem inconsequential. I refer now to two specimens described 

 by Dr. Abbott in " Primitive Industry." One of these is a remarkable 

 slate knife, the striking features of which are a " series of etchings and 

 deeply incised lines of perhaps no meaning. Taken in order, it will be 

 noticed that at the back of the knife are four short lines at uniform dis- 

 tances apart, and a fifth near the end of the implement. Besides these 

 are fifteen shorter parallel lines near the broader end of the knife and 

 about the middle of the blade. A series of five zigzag lines are also cut 

 on the opposite end of the blade. * * * More prominent than the 

 numerous lines to which reference has been made, are the clearly de- 

 fined, unmistakable birds' heads, placed midway between the two 

 series of lines. » » * Did we not learn from the writings of Hecke- 

 welder, that the Lenap^ had 'the turkey totem,' we might suppose 

 that this drawing of such bird heads originated with the intrusive 

 southern Shawnees, who, at one time, occupied lauds in the Delaware 

 Valley, and who are supposed by some writers to have been closely re- 

 lated to the earliest inhabitants of the Southern and Southwestern 

 States. Inasmuch as we shall find that, not only on this slate knife, 

 bnt upon a bone implement also, similar heads of birds are engraved, 

 it is probable that the identity of the design is not a mere coincidence, 

 but that it must be explained either in accordance with the statements 

 of Hcckewelder, or be considered as the work of southern Shawnees 

 after their arrival in New Jersey. In the latter event, the theory that 

 these disks were the work of a people different from and anterior to the 

 Indians found in the Cumberland Valley at the time of the discovery 

 of that region by the whites is, apparently, not sustained by the 

 facts.'" 



A cut of the bone implement referred to above is reproduced from 

 Dr. Abbott's work, in Plate LIX, Fig. 4. It has probably been made from 

 a portion of a rib of some large mammal and is thought to be somewhat 

 fragmentary. " The narrow portion has been cut or ground away to 

 some extent, and the edges are quite smoothly polished. Near the end 

 of this handle-like portion, there is a countersunk perforation, and upon 

 the concave side of the wider part there are rudely outlined the heads 

 of two birds."" These resemble somewhat closely the heads depicted 

 on the other specimen described by Dr. Abbott. The specimens re- 

 ferred to are both from New Jersey, and are probabl y surface finds. 



'Abbott : Primitive Industry, pp. 70, 72, and 73. 

 ■>IMd., p. 207. 



