42 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The Algonquins used shields of a rectangular form, and a Dutch 

 writer of 1671 says that these covered the body up to the shoulders. 

 In fighting these could be set on the ground, leaving both arms free. 

 A Jesuit father, writing of a Canadian chief in 1633, said that he 

 ' bore with him a very large buckler, very long and very wide ; it 

 covered all my body easily, and went from my feet up to my chest. 

 They raise it and cover themselves entirely with it. It was made of 

 a single piece of very light cedar. I do not know how they can 

 smooth so large and wide a board with their knives. It was a little 

 bent or curved in order the better to cover the body; and in order 

 that the strokes of arrows, or of blows coming to split it, should not 

 carry away the piece, he had sewed it above and below with a cord of 

 skin. They do not carry these shields on the arm; they pass the cord 

 which sustains them over the right shoulder, protecting the left side; 

 and when they have aimed their blow they have only to draw back 

 the right side to cover themselves.' 



The use of the war club is well known, and this implement, with or 

 without a stone axe or antler inserted, was the original tomahawk. 

 The French writers often speak of the swords of the Iroquois and 

 others, but without any precise description. They were sometimes 

 fastened to poles by the Algonquins and used as spears. Stones or 

 shells were used as knives, but the white man's knife soon supplanted 

 these; and this was the lot of the stone axe, which was not grooved 

 among the Iroquois, nor was it usually in New York or Canada. 

 First, the French trade axe, and then the smaller steel tomahawk, 

 became favorites, while guns took the place of bows and arrows. 



Although spear-heads present a few varieties in New York not 

 common here in arrows, so many are essentially the same, except in 

 size, that they will require fewer illustrations. They are quite often of 

 fine or showy materials, and are as variable in coarseness or delicacy 

 of work as in other ways. 



Leaf shaped spear-heads are often quite large. One of common 

 flint, from Baldwinsville, has lost half an inch from its tip, and is still 

 nine inches long, with an extreme width of two and three quarters 

 inches. The base is neatly rounded, and the outline that which 

 botanists term lanceolate. This form is common and when thin may 



