1397.] Anthropology. 825 
With this analysis in hand let us return to the tomahawk ; it is a 
compound weapon, having for its function both bruising and cutting. 
It is also a handled weapon. The addition of the pike to the poll of 
the tomahawk is simply one of those delightful transitions which all 
industrial things undergo in passing from the useful into the ceremon- 
ial and mythic condition. In the aboriginal times tomahawks had no 
pike attachment. 
The iron tomahawks in the United States National Museum are of 
two distinct classes: the one has an edge like a carpenter’s hatchet, the 
other has a point and so belongs rather to the striking-piercing than to 
the striking-cutting apparatus of the northern type. So far as the 
record of these instruments go, the broad-edged, hatchet-like tomahawks 
were first sold to the Indians by the English and Dutch, while those 
with the pointed blade came through the Spaniards and the French or 
through southern or Latin Europeans. Indeed, the blade of this toma- 
hawk is that of a pike and is bent at right angles so as to work with a 
blow rather than with a thrust. 
Now, according to universal usage of savage peoples, they usually 
accept from civilized traders those things which supply a “long felt 
want.” This “long felt want” is usually, both in practical life and in 
scientific pursuits, the consciousness of a mechanical incapacity or 
weakness. Very frequently the artisan knows what he wants, but he 
has not the practical skill to invent it. The savages of this country, 
then, exploited the tomahawk and toek it in lieu of something they 
were using, but which was far inferior to their desires in this direction. 
For their bloody work the hatchet-tomahawk or the pike-tomahawk 
was a boon . 
The weapons of this class which preceded the metallic ones were 
made of antler, in which the long prong furnished the handle and the 
shorter prong the working portion with or without the addition of a 
sharper point. In countries where the elk-horns of heavy antlers were 
not procurable, and good working hatchet blades of volcanic stone 
could be procured, the tomahawk was simply a celt or grooved blade 
set into a handle by one of the many ways by which hafting was 
formerly done. 
In considering, therefore, the great mass of so-called celts and 
grooved axes, it must be understood that while a portion of them were 
industrial tools with the savage artisan, many of them were a striking- 
cutting weapon attached to a handle to enable the warrior to do his 
work at a short distance. 
