130 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



them, we could fire at the savages and beat them off the plain, with- 

 out any hurt to ourselves ; yet they shot more than a thousand arrows, 

 and then fled into the woods. Arming ourselves with these light 

 targets (which are made of small sticks, interwoven with strings of 

 their hemp and silk grass), we rescued Todkill. Smith, Captain 



With these good results and this warning, " we spent the rest of 

 the day in fortifying our boat with our Massawomek shields." This 

 was a high tribute to their value. He added : " As we went along, 

 we are continually being shot at, but no hurt was done, because of 

 our shields." A later and more formidable attack came. " More 

 than a hundred arrows stuck in our targets and about the boat, 

 yet none hurt" 



Figure 66 shows the angular Canadian shield as represented by 

 Champlain, with a straight base and curved top. He figured some 

 sufficiently curved to stand by themselves, sheltering the warriors 

 behind them. Figure 65 is a circular and more western shield from 

 the same author. Both have fastenings for the arms, rather than 

 the shoulders. The round bucklers of the Mohawks were mentioned 

 in 1642, and they used both forms. 



The fish spear, with either a bone or stone head, and often with 

 none at all, being merely a sharpened stick, was undoubtedly used 

 at an early day. The earlier Iroquois sites of the colonial period 

 furnish many examples of the large bone harpoon, barbed on one 

 side. The use of metal brought other forms. One for spearing 

 eels by night, used in Canada in 1634, is thus described: 



This harpoon is an instrument composed of a long pole, thick as 

 three fingers, at the end of which they attach a pointed iron, which 

 they arm on both sides with two recurved sticks, approaching each 

 other at the end of the iron point ; when they come to strike an eel 

 with this harpoon, they spit it on this iron, the two sticks adjoining 

 yielding to the force of the blow, and allowing the eel to enter; 

 then they tighten of themselves, because they open only by the 

 shock of the stroke, they prevent the spitted eel from getting out 

 again. Relation, 1634 



It is probable that the plan of this spear was very old, iron being 

 substituted for bone, but the wooden sides remaining the same. In 

 New York it long maintained its place. John Bartram was at 

 Oswego Falls in 1743, and saw how the Indians took fish there with 



