MAKING ARROW. HEADS—THANKSGIVING DANCE. ‘105 
River Indians:- “* * * <A piece of bone is fastened to a wooden 
shaft one and a half feet in length, the working point of which is crooked 
and raised to an edge. The motions to be made with this instrument are 
shown with the two principal angles, * * * — the force employed 
being all the time solely pushing. To guide the instrument with a steady 
hand, the handle is held between the arm and the breast, while the point, 
with but little play-room, assisted by the thumb, works on the edge of the 
flake, which again is held for greater safety in a piece of deer-skin. After 
the two sides have been worked down to a point, then another instrument 
is required, with which the barbs and projections are broken out.. This is 
a needle or awl of about three inches length, and by a pushing motion the 
desired pieces are broken out similar as with the first-mentioned tool”. 
Judging by this description, the tool here mentioned is made and 
worked like one I saw among the Washo of Nevada. 
Besides the ordinary dances of enjoyment, of friendship, ete., the 
Viard have an annual thanksgiving dance in autumn. It is not an extra- 
foraneous affair like most of the great anniversary dances of the northern 
tribes, but is held in a large assembly-hall. A number of men, fifteen or 
twenty, according to the room, and two or three maidens, constitute the 
performers, all of whom are arrayed in barbaric splendor, with feather 
head-dresses, fur robes, strings of abalone shells, beads, ete. They dance 
in a circle around the fire, chanting their monotonous and meaningless 
choruses, as usual, with occasional improvised recitative, as the spirit may 
move them, but not beating time to their singing. The observant reader 
has probably remarked that most of the tribes so far mentioned do not 
employ the baton to cadence their harmony, although they keep remark- 
ably good time; but south of Humboldt Bay most of them beat time to 
their chanting. . 
But the great feature of the occasion is the oration pronounced by some 
“old man eloquent”. Ata certain turn of the celebration he proceeds to 
make them a set harangue, in round and sonorous phrasing, wherein he 
sums up all the bounties and triumphs of the year. He enumerates all the 
fat, firm-fleshed elk they have snared or shot, all the cotton-tailed deer they 
have run down, the cougars, if any, their braves may have killed, the grizzly 
