362 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



An interesting specimen in connection with this theory occurs in 

 a highly decorated form of pipe in the State Museum collec- 

 tion. The pipe is of brass of European origin. About the bowl 

 of the pipe extending from the neck-base upward is a large 

 crescent-shaped object perhaps intended to be a moon effigy or more 

 remotely a canoe, though the crescent is too thin to resemble one 

 closely. On one s'de of the crescent is a figure of a man with an 

 arm extended and holding a shaft having a Weighted bottom. The 

 pattern has been cut out and riveted on the crescent. In form this 

 adjunct to the pipe somewhat resembles a banner stone, but we do 

 not believe that the maker of this pipe was ever familiar with banner 

 stones or knew of their actual use. This pipe of brass, which has a 

 wooden core and stem, has an earlier prototype in certain forms of 

 prehistoric Onondaga clay pipes the bowl of which is extended for- 

 ward and backward to resemble a canoe. 



Another use of the banner stone is that of a helmet ornament 

 suggested by certain human figures embossed on sheet copper from 

 mounds. There is some merit in this conjecture when a study is 

 made of the elaborate head dresses of the mound-building period. 

 The Sioux and other Indians within modern times have decorated 

 their heads with horns and the Iroquois cap had a spool-shaped 

 socket at the crown in which an upright feather was placed in such 

 a manner that it would revolve. 



Possible prototypes. In connection with our studies of the banner 

 stone as a whorl we have examined the drill spindles of various 

 races in several of the larger museums. We find that the head- 

 piece of a drill spindle employed by the Eskimo, for example, 

 resembles in certain ways the knobbed or blunt-ended banner stone 

 of the horned type. The headpieces are rather more neatly made 

 than the remaining portion of the drill among the Eskimo. The 

 Eskimo top pieces are frequently carved of bone and have at their 

 upper portion (that curve to fit the mouth) wooden projections 

 which are used as handles and held in the teeth. On the lower side 

 is the socket in which the top of the spindle is inserted. One of 

 these headpieces worn through by long use and pushed down over 

 the shaft would quickly suggest a new use. The possibility of wear- 

 ing through is not remote because the holes were drilled in the bone 

 to a considerable distance in order to prevent the slipping out of the 

 spindle. Indeed to prevent the rapid wearing into the bone or ivory 

 the Eskimo even recently mortised into the headpiece small pieces 

 of rectangular stone into which the hole was drilled. Not all head- 

 pieces take a similar form and there is a large individual variation. 



