FowKE] LARGER CHIPPED IMPLEMENTS. 133 



In the spades and lioes first to be considered the flaking seems to 

 have been by percussion mainly, if not entirely; the same method 

 appears to have been employed in obtaining flakes from blocks, to work 

 into the smaller implements. Some of the processes used in making 

 them will be hereinafter described. 



Spades. 



It must be admitted that most Indians depended largely on agricul- 

 ture for subsistence ; some historical works that represent them as bar- 

 barous hunters, deftendmg entirely on the chase, will, on the same page 

 perhaps, relate how Virginia and New England pioneers were saved 

 from starvation by supplies of corn, beans, and pumpkins obtained from 

 the Indians. This being the case, some method of cultivation was 

 necessary. 



It is not to be inferred that "cultivation" implies all that is now 

 meant by the term ; the Indian seems merely to have worked the hill 

 in which his corn was planted and uot the whole surface of the iield, 

 a shallow hole being scooped out in which the grain was dropped, and 

 as the stalk became larger the dirt was heaped up around it. The 

 remains of many "Indian old fields" in various jiarts of the country 

 show this, there being no long ridges as in cornfields of the present 

 day, but only a great number of these detached hills. The great scar- 

 city of implements suitable for such work argues nothing, for iu most 

 parts of the country stone easily worked and adapted to the piu'pose 

 is unobtainable. 



There are a few flint deposits found in southern Illinois in which 

 the material occurs in nodules that can be made with even less work 

 than a piece of wood into suitable implements; and in the country 

 which may be considered as belonging to this archeologic district 

 the flint hoes and spades are tolerably abundant. In ot Ler portions of 

 the country, wood, the shoulder blades of large animals, and mussel- 

 shells perforated for attachment to a handle, were formerly u.sed ; the 

 shells are frequently found, but the other materials have long since 

 disappeared. 



Early observations on the industries of the aborigines are significant. 

 Thus, according to De Forest, the Oonnecticut Indians used spades 

 rudely constructed of wood, or of a large shell fastened to a wooden 

 handle ; ' and Palmer- figures a hoe made of horn, 14 by 5 by one-fourth 

 inches, in a wooden handle 5 feet long, which is split and slipped over 

 the smaller end; such, with others of wood and stone, were used among 

 the Utah Indians before iron was introduced. Dawson holds that they 

 were probably prepared in large numbers for the planting time, when 

 the whole tribe mustered to till the fields, and that when the work was 

 over they were gathered and hidden in some safe place until the next 



' De Forest, J. W. ; History of Indians of Conn., p. 5. 

 "PeaUody Mus., lltli Ann. Ropt., ji. 271. 



