FOWKE) 



USE OF GROOVKD AXES. 



63 



In the eastern and ulterior states, the grooved axes are far more 

 abnndant than the celts of the same size', because as a rule only the 

 larger implements of this class are grooved. All the ordniary varieties 

 of axes and hatchets are found about Lake Champlaiii, by far the most 

 abundant being celts, or grooveless axes. ^ 



According to Adaii' and other early observers, the southern Indians 

 had axes of stone, around the grooved heads of which they twisted 

 hickory withes to serve as handles; with these they deadened timber 

 by girdling or cutting through the bark. •" According to travelers of a 

 later generation among the western Indians, similar implements were 

 used on the plains to chop up the vertebrie of buffaloes, which were 

 boiled to obtain the marrow. ■* 



These statements, which might be multiplied, show that such objects 

 are to be found widely scattered ; 

 none, however, give information 

 more delinite than that the axes 

 are "grooved," no reference being 

 made to the shape of the ax or the 

 manner of grooving. 



The various modes of mounting 

 axes and celts in handles are illus- 

 trated in the Smithsonian Report i 

 for 1879. 



Stone axes were used in Europe 

 by the Germans at as late a period 

 as the Thirty Years' war, and are 

 supposed to have been used by the 

 Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Hast- 

 ings.'' 



Axes having two grooves occur '^■"- 29— "s^oo^e^ "j^- si"'" '"s y™"^'*' i"'"''"'*™"'- 

 in considerable numbers iu the pueblos of southwestern United States, 

 but they are extremely rare elsewhere and iinknown in most districts; 

 as the objects are generally small, the utility of the second groove is 

 not evident. 



The arrangement of stone axes may be based upon the manner of 

 forming the groove. In one class are placed those which in the process 

 of making had a ridge left encircling the weapon, in which the groove 

 was formed. This gives the ax greater strength with the same mate- 

 rial. Usually the groove has been worked just deep enough to reach 

 the body of the ax ; that is, to such a depth that should the projections 

 be ground off there would remain a celt-like implement {as shown in 



' Abbott, C. C, in American Naturalist, vol, x, p, 494. 



2 Perkins; Ibid, vol. XIII, p, 738. 



^ Adair; Hi.story of American Indians, p 405. 



■^Long, S. H.; Expedition to the Kocky Mountains. j>.-211. 



' Kniglit, E. H. ; Smithsonian Report for 1879, p. 242. 



