SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 543 



the manufacture. But already, in the first half of the eighteenth 

 century, catlinite had made its way into the Gulf region. 



At some time in the past steatite, or soapstone, was used consid- 

 erably. This was a favorite material for pipes even in late times, 

 and steatite pots, or fragments of pots, have been found on known 

 Creek sites along Tallapoosa River. Bushnell has located several 

 quarries in Virginia, and there was one near Dudleyville, Talla- 

 poosa Co., Ala. (Tuomey, 1858, p. 46), but no tradition of its use in 

 the manufacture of any objects except pipes has been preserved. 



Muscovite mica mines were worked in Clay County, Ala., in town- 

 ship 19, range 7 east, section 26, and in Talladega County, township 

 20, range 6, section 12. A mica mine is also reported from Hall 

 County, Ga., but the most extensive workings were in Mitchell and 

 Yancy Counties, N. C. (Thomas, 1891, p. 15; Holmes, 1919, pp. 241- 

 252). 



FLINT IMPLEMENTS 



Flint arrow points are mentioned as in use throughout almost the 

 whole Gulf region, but flint seems to have been used nowhere to the 

 exclusion of other material. As we have specific mention of flint, 

 or at least "stone," arrow points in Florida and the seacoast sec- 

 tion of Louisiana where it must have been hardest to get, we may 

 feel sure that there was practically no exception to the universality 

 of its employment. (Hakluyt, 1847-89, vol. 3, p. 613; Kobertson, 

 1933, p. 37 ; Swanton, 1922, p. 357 ; 1911, p. 347.) Curiously enough, it 

 does not appear in the rather long list of articles used by the Natchez 

 in heading arrows, but as the Avoyel tribe, just west of the Natchez, 

 and their near relatives, were actively engaged in trading in flints — 

 so actively that they were known as "Flint People" — it is altogether 

 unlikely that the Natchez never employed flints (Swanton, 1911, pp. 

 272-274). Timberlake does not mention flint arrow points among 

 the Cherokee, but when he wrote that tribe had long been in contact 

 with Europeans. Hariot does not mention stone points in North 

 Carolina, but we have specific mention of the use of flint among the 

 people of Florida, the Creeks about Augusta, Ga., the Virginia 

 Indians, the Chickasaw, the Alabama Indians when they were in 

 northern Mississippi, and all the Indians of Louisiana west of the 

 Natchez. Mention has been made of a crystal or white stone commonly 

 used in the Virginia section (Beverley, 1705, bk. 2, p. 11). In 1701 

 Lawson came upon a wretched band of Indians in North Carolina 

 called "the lower quarter," who had already begun to take to glass 

 bottles as a substitute for native flint (Lawson, 1860, p. 99) 



Flint seems to have been employed in the manufacture of one 

 other weapon, though there are few notices of it anywhere but in 

 Virginia. It is described as a wooden sword the edges of which were 



