ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IN NEW YORK 



93 



Iroquois in 1736, the French writer said the Mohawks had for their 

 device a battefeu or steel, and a flint. 



Mr Morgan has been quoted as though the wheel were of stone, 

 but he did not say this, nor does the figure suggest it. No stone 

 articles have been found in New York which could have had such 

 a use. Figure 5 shows one of these drills. The Onondagas say 

 they once used a slender cylindric stone instead of a stick. 



Some stone tools were sharp enough to cut wood, but fire certainly 

 helped much in the coarser work. In small articles flint knives 

 would cut rapidly, though not adapted for a fine finish. It is prob- 

 able that sandstones or fine sand were used for this. Most 

 antiquarians suppose that the straight grooves made in boulders were 

 for straightening and polishing arrow shafts. They are about the 

 proper size for this and show that sand moved in them in parallel 

 lines. This cuts rapidly when mixed with water. Such boulders, 

 however, for the most part are confined to a limited area in New 

 York, and the requirements of arrow-making may be considered 

 later. 



Food 



The Indians thought the use of trees as food important. The 

 Adirondack Indians had this name, as equivalent to Tree-eaters, 

 from the Iroquois. To the New England Indians they were known 

 in this way, but Roger Williams seems to have confused them with 

 the Mohawks when he said of them: 



Mihtukme'chakick, Tree Eaters. A people so called (living be- 

 tween three and foure hundred miles West, into the land) from their 

 eating only Michtu' chquash, that is, Trees : They are M en-eaters, 

 they eat no corne, but live on the bark of Chesnut and Walnut, and 

 other fine trees ; They dry and eat this bark with the fat of Beasts, 

 and sometimes of men. Williams, ch.2 



In his Description of the New Netherlands, published in 1653, 

 Adriaen Van der Donck spoke of the same thing : " Our Indians 

 say that they did eat roots, and the bark of trees instead of bread, 

 before the introduction of Indian corn or maize." Van der Donck, 

 5:137. He rarely distinguished between the Iroquois and Algon- 

 quins, but his statement belongs to the latter. Other writers have 



