ARCHAEOLOGY. 49 



was worked altogether with stone hammers, with such aid as could be 

 derived from fire. 



The very wide range of forms and relics, the diversity of material, 

 and their unlikeness to almost everything belonging to the present inhab- 

 itants, have caused some misapprehension or confusion as to their prob- 

 able uses. This is especially the case with the great quantity of objects 

 whose manufacture may be considered the outcome of esthetic or religious 

 ideas. They are made of nearly all the different kinds of shell, bone, 

 metal, and stone, especially slate and steatite, accessible to their fabrica- 

 tors. Under such names as gorgets, crescents, wands, tubes, banner-stones, 

 amulets, pendants, butterfly gorgets, ear-bobs, bracelets, breast plates, 

 beads, buttons, head-dresses, labrets, nose-rings, charms, and a score of 

 others, they are delineated in many volumes. No detailed description of 

 them would be intelligible unless accompanied by numerous illustrations; 

 and to ascribe a purpose to any pattern, unless a similar one had been 

 seen in actual service, would be as presumptuous as the attempt by an 

 individual entirely ignorant of modern secret societies to explain the 

 meaning of badges, pins, or regalia. No doubt some owe their form 

 merely to a whim or fancy of the maker; others were purely decorative; 

 while many of them were symbolic, or for use in the manifold dances, 

 parades, celebrations, superstitious ceremonies, and other observances, so 

 dear to the minds of an uncultured people. The manner of perforation 

 in some indicates they were for suspension by cords; in others, that they 

 were 1 o be placed on a staff; still others, unperforated, may have been 

 secured in various ways. Nearly all are made of material that would 

 break if carelessly handled; many are of such size or shape that no prac- 

 tical use for them can be imagined. They are to be found in all cabinets 

 and museums, being much sought by collectors on account of their beauty 

 or supposed mysterious significance. A statement that each piece had a 

 certain use, cannot be gainsaid; but the person who makes such claim 

 must give satisfactory reasons for his assertion before it is to be accepted 

 as a fact and not a guess. 



There is less trouble in regard to the utensils, weapons, or implements 

 for ordinary work, comprising articles necessary in agriculture, hunting, 

 warfare, or domestic affairs. 



Trees could be felled, cut in lengths, split for puncheons, or hollowed 

 into canoes or mortars, with axes, hatchets, wedges, or adzes of stone or 

 thick, strong shells, set with the edge parallel or transverse to the handle, 

 according to their manner of use. Usually fire was applied at the proper 

 points and the charcoal scraped away as it formed; but the remains of 

 logs a foot in diameter that had been cut entirely through by such rude 

 tools, have been exhumed from mounds. Hoes and adzes frequently 

 have notches on each side, the faces being flat; in such cases the end of 



4 G. O. 



