24 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
ened with thongs to a stone. When the stone was fashioned into a battle- 
axe it composed what we now call the tomahawk. The blade of the tom- 
ahawk was rarely made of copper. 
Spears were also used—sharpened sticks of hardened wood, and 
wooden shafts tipped with horn, bone, stone, or copper. 
Various devices were used as barbs for fishing spears. 
The Indians were sometimes armed for close conflict with long-bladed 
knives of stone, and, rarely, of copper. Sometimes the handle was of one 
piece with the blade; sometimes the handle was made of wood fastened 
with cement. 
For defensive purposes they used shields made of the untanned skin 
of some animal, hardened by drying. For further protection they dug 
pits, in which they concealed themselves for ambuscade and found protec- 
tion for their bodies. They also built palisades about their villages. 
Those who navigated the rivers and shore waters of lakes and seas 
made canoes by hollowing trees with fire and stone adzes. Small canoes 
were the property of individuals; large ones usually of gentes. 
Some tribes caught fish with hook and line and with nets. Many 
tribes made large nets of twisted vegetable fibers, as hurdles for catching 
rabbits and some other animals. Into these nets the animals were driven 
by methods commonly known in this country as circle hunting. 
Pipes were made of reeds, hollow stems of wood, baked clay, and 
stone. In the more primitive methods the axis of the bowl was a prolonga- 
tion of the axis of the stem; many Indians still prefer pipes of this fashion 
for ceremonial use. 
In domestic utensils they had wooden ware, stone ware, horn ware, 
basketry, and pottery. 
§ 6.—FOOD. 
The objects used for food by the priscan Indians were multifarious; 
depending largely upon the habitat of the several tribes—fruits, nuts, seeds 
of trees, and fruits of many shrubs and grasses, roots, reeds, fruits, tubers, 
fleshy leaves and stalks, the inner bark of trees, various fungi, and in one 
case, certainly, subterranean fungi—the Tuckahoe and diatomaceous earths. 
They also raised corn, squashes, and beans. 
