23 
SECURING OF FOOD 
Artifacts used in securing food consist of those employed in hunting 
and fishing, and comprise stone, bone, and antler points for arrows, bone 
and antler points for harpoons, probable bone barbs for fish-hooks and 
spears, and barbed bone fish-hooks. Other objects may have been used in 
cultivating the soil and in gathering and preparing the crop. 
Besides the arrow-points made of stone, bone, and antler it is probable 
that blunt wooden arrows were used to stun small game, as among the 
modern Iroquois. 1 
POINTS FOR ARROWS, SPEARS, OR KNIVES CHIPPED FROM STONE 
Only six stone points for arrows and two possible points for spears or 
knives were found by us; four others were collected by Mr. White, the 
owner of one of the farms on which the site is located. It is not probable 
that the large points were intended for spears, because the Iroquois of the 
St. Lawrence valley do not seem to have used spears; at least, Cartier's 
vocabulary of Hochelagan and other Iroquois words (pages 243-244), does 
not give one for spear. 
The arrow-points are of two types — triangular and notched {See Plate 
I, figures 1-3). Only a few require any special description. One of the 
points is triangular (Cat. No. VIII-F-12288) , and another in Mr. White’s 
collection is crudely triangular wdth concave base. The specimen in figures 
1 and 2 and one of Mr. White’s are only slightly notched. The edges of 
the tangs on the point in figure 3 are almost at a right angle to the basal 
edge, and in this respect the point resembles a type, developed apparently 
from a triangular point by simply notching the edges, that is commonly 
found at Neutral sites in the western part of southern Ontario {See author, 
1, figure 8). Only about half of the face seen in the illustration shows 
secondary chipping. The blade is slightly twisted as in some of the so-called 
“ rotary ” points. One of the specimens in Mr. White’s collection is of the 
same type. Another notched specimen in the same collection is about 
twice as long as wide, and has convex edges and base. 
The crests of the chipping facets on the tanged point illustrated in Plate 
I, figure 4, look worn, as if from long use. It seems too heavy for an arrow- 
head, and may have been the blade of a knife or spear. Both edges of the 
long point in figure 5 are more or less delicately chipped; the sharp edges 
and length of the point suggest that it was used as a knife blade. Figure 6 
shows a large point, crudely chipped from a weathered or w r aterworn piece 
of slate. The length of the stem on the crudely chipped slate specimen in 
figure 7 suggests that it is an unfinished knife blade. 
Although so few projectile points, chipped from stone, were found 
here, they are said to have been common at a site of the same culture near 
Maynard, about 6 miles south of Roebuck. They are also common on 
Algonkian sites in the St. Lawrence valley. According to Dawson (1:437) 
no points for arrows were discovered at the site of Hochelaga, 2 and the 
'Beauchamp (6: 123) thinks "The small number of arrowheads found on Iroquois town sites of the last 300 
years supports’’ the antiquity of the use of blunt wooden arrows. 
! An arrow-head in the Dawson collection in the McCord Museum, Montreal (Acc. No. 4295) and another in the 
Gravel collection {No. 58), Museum of the Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Society, Montreal, however, 
may be from the site. 
