35 
ness of edge that more civilized peoples secured with metal; steel 
knives and hatchets were, therefore, the trade goods most in demand 
during the early days of colonization, reaching many parts of the 
country long before the first white explorers^ 
39674 
An Eskimo of the Mackenzie River delta using a bow-drill 
for piercing bone. (Photo hy J. R. Cox.) 
Closely allied to stone knives, and often distinguishable from 
them only by the handles or shafts in which they were mounted, 
were saws, drills, daggers, and two-edged points for spears, harpoons, 
anrl arrows. Gouges and chisels, on the other hand, closely resem- 
1 Sproat says that the Nnotka Indians of Vancouver island did not make stone tools, and that 
although a few stone adzes were current among tlieni, these were obtained from northern tribes: " The 
l)ladc of their adze was a mussel -siieil, of their knife, bone, and of tlielr eliisols elk-horn ” (Sproat, 
G. .M.: “.Scenes and Sttidies of Savage Life”; Appendix, p. 316 (I.ondon, 1868)). Yet Meares expressly 
states that the Nootka built their canoes with utensils of .stone made by themselves, whicli can only 
mean stone adzes (Meares, J. : “Voyage to the Xorth-West 0)ast of America”; p. 262 (London, 1790)). 
