FOWKEJ GORGETS AND THEIR USES. 117 



be for bracers.' It is said that the Miami Indians wore similar plates 

 of stone to protect their wrists from the bowstring.^ Herndou and 

 Gibbon remark that a gold ornament in shape like a gorget, but not 

 pierced, is worn on the forehead by some of the Amazon Indians.^ 

 According to Schoolcraft the so called gorgets were sometimes used as 

 twine-twisters ; ^ but Abbott holds that while some may have been twine- 

 twisters, or may have been used for condensing sinews or evening bow- 

 strings (that is, reducing the strings to a uniform diameter), most were 

 simply ornaments, as they are generally found on the breast of a 

 buried body.'' Stevens is even more conservative, holding that they 

 were neither twine-twisters nor devices for condensing sinews or even- 

 ing bowstrings, as they show no marks of wear in the holes.^ 



Some writers suppose the gorgets to have been shuttles; but this 

 supposition can hardly be entertained, although it is true, according 

 to Chase, that the Oregon Indians passed thread with a curved boue 

 needle.' As twine-twisters they would be about as awkward as any- 

 thing that could be devised. As to evening bowstrings, it would seem 

 that if a string were too large in places to pass through a hole it could 

 not be pulled through; pounding and rolling the wet string with a 

 smooth stone, or some such means, would be the remedy. The bracer 

 theory is plausible ; but no one seems ever to have seen a gorget used for 

 this purpose. 



Few of the gorgets in the Bureau collection show such marks of wear 

 around the edges of the hole as would be made by a cord; but the 

 majority are thus worn at the middle, where the hole is smallest. 

 Some specimens among every lot are not perforated, or only partially 

 so; the drilling seems to have been the last stage of the work. The 

 hole is almost always drilled from both sides, and the few in which it 

 goes entirely through from one side would probably have had it 

 enlarged later from the other. A number are fragments of larger 

 gorgets, the pieces having been redrilled. 



Some of the specimens have various notches and incised lines, the 

 latter being sometimes in tolerably regular order; but there is not the 

 .slightest indication that these marks had any meaning or were intended 

 for any other purpose than to add to the ornamental appearance of the 

 stone. 



If they were to be worn at the belt or on any part of the dress they 

 could easily have been fastened by a knotted string, or if the wearer 

 desired he could have an ornamental button of some kind. If suspended 

 around the neck, in order to make them lie flat against the breast they 

 l>robably had a short cord passed thiough the perforation and tied 



' Evans ; Stone Implemeute, p. 383. 



2 Amer. Antiquarian, vol. ll, p. 100. 



3 Exi>l. in the Valley of the Amazon, vol. ii, p. 74. ^ 

 * Indian Tribes, vol. i, p. 90. 



*Amer. Naturalist, vol. vil. p. 180. 



'Flint Chips, |i. 478. 



'MS. Kept, on Shell Mounds of Oregon. 



