The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2

PICK AND CRESCENT, THE BOAT-SHAPED, BAR-FORMS, ETC.—CONCLUSIONS

There are many winged perforated stones different from the forms commonly called banner-stones. In some specimens one of the wings is omitted, the other being cut angularly, forming the L-shaped objects shown in Figs. 353 and 354. The L-shaped objects are closely related to the crescents. I have seen few unfinished objects of the L-shaped class. A series of six unfinished specimens, pick or crescent type, are shown in Fig. 356. A comparison of Figs. 355, 356, and 357 will indicate that the range is from pick-shaped (shown in the centre of Fig. 355) to slightly curved pick crescents, terminating in examples like the beautiful large crescent shown in Fig. 358. This specimen is, by the way, one of the best in any collection in this country. Little or nothing is known regarding these pick- and crescent-shaped forms and absolutely nothing regarding the L-shaped. So far as theory is concerned, I am of the opinion that two of them were worn by men during ceremonial dances, or something of that sort. Then they were fastened to the head and stood up on either side in imitation of horns. I have no evidence of that belief; it is simply my opinion.

BARS AND BAR-AMULETS

The “Handbook” says a little about these. Mr. A. E. Douglas, of the American Museum, in a pamphlet published some years ago, offered remarks concerning them. I present Figs. 364 to 368 illustrating these. All kinds are shown from the straight bar to the ridged bar, to the highly complicated form shown in Fig. 367. Whether these were worn on the forearm, or tied to the head, or worn across the chest, I am unable to state. All these various uses have been assigned them by other observers.

It will be seen that there are not only straight bars, but bars with the ends slightly enlarged, as specimen number 22 in Fig. 364, and also bars, convex above, and flat underneath. One with a ridge along the back is shown in the lower figure in 365.

The ridged gorgets gradually develop, according to my arrangement, until they terminate in bars, or the series may be traced the other way. Five of these are shown in Fig. 366. However, there is this difference, the bars are perforated or grooved at each end and the ridged gorgets are perforated on either side of the centre.

The remarkable specimen from Iowa presented in Fig. 367 is the most highly developed bar-amulet that I have seen in any collection.

Fig. 360 in the upper right-hand corner is an engraved spool-shaped object of sandstone. Numbers of these have been found in the United States. They are of various sizes and diameters for the most part engraved in various lines, circles, etc. The best of the shorter articles dealing with these was published in The Antiquarian (Columbus, 1897) page 172, and was written by Mr. A. F. Berlin.

Dr. Thomas Wilson in The Swastika, page 975, speaks of these spool-shaped ornaments and draws comparisons between those found in America and foreign countries. Wilson thought that they were bobbins on which thread was wound. They appear to have been highly appreciated by the aborigines, for they are always carefully made and decorated with Maltese and St. Andrews crosses, zig-zag lines, sun symbols, etc.

The “Handbook of American Indians,” page 157, contains brief descriptions of boat-stones, written by Gerard Fowke and Professor Holmes. I quote their remarks:—

“Prehistoric objects of polished stone having somewhat the shape of a canoe, the use of which is unknown. Some have straight parallel sides and square ends; in others the sides converge to a blunt point. A vertical section cut lengthwise of either is approximately triangular, the long face is more or less hollow, and there is usually a perforation near each end; some have a groove on the outer or convex side, apparently to receive a cord passed through the holes. Sometimes there is a keel-like projection in which this groove is cut. It is surmised that they were employed as charms or talismans and carried about the person. They are found sparingly in most of the states east of the Mississippi River, as well as in Canada. Those in the Northern States are made principally of slate, in the South and West steatite is most common, but other varieties of stone were used. In form some of these objects approach the plummets and are perforated at one end for suspension; others approximate the cones and hemispheres. Analogous objects are found on the Pacific Coast, some of which are manifestly modeled after the native canoe, while others resemble the boat-stones of the East, although often perforated at one end for suspension.”

Dr. Thomas Wilson had a theory that these boat-stones were made to ward off evil and that in the hollow of the boat-stone was tied a wooden effigy of a human being; that boat-stone and effigy were put away for a certain length of time, and thus the evil was avoided or the influence of the effigy rendered of no effect.

In the preceding pages I have had so much to say about supposed use of problematical forms, that there is little need for lengthy conclusions. Moreover, in general Conclusions in “The Stone Age,” I shall consider the meaning of these and other things in more detail.

Many of the tablets or winged objects have been called “shuttles,” and were supposed to have been used in the weaving of cloth and nets. Other less sensible uses have been applied to these things.

It has always seemed to me ridiculous to claim that the prehistoric peoples made use of objects, on which a great deal of time and hard labor were spent, for ordinary purposes. Last summer when among the Ojibwa, I made particular inquiries of them regarding the use of various implements; particularly the small triangular boards, cut in the form of stone tablets, with which I saw old women weaving nets. They informed me that they used similar small, flat pieces of wood with concave ends in olden times.

An Indian could make a wooden shuttle in far less time than required to make one of stone, and if he dropped the wooden shuttle it would not break. If he dropped a winged stone and it struck any hard substance, it would be pretty apt to break or at least to be nicked.

Regarding the winged and other forms it is significant that no great number of these objects are found in the mounds, rather do they occur in the surface, pretty much anywhere in the Mississippi Valley and the St. Lawrence basin. In the great mounds of the Ohio Valley and also in the South, copper objects and pipes are common, the winged specimens in slate are very rare. My own opinion is that these things are older than the mounds. The gorgets with raised surfaces, such as Fig. 363, occur more frequently in the mounds of the Scioto Valley, than other types, excepting pendants, which are common everywhere. The same is true of the large squared or rectangular tablets; the double-winged stones are almost entirely wanting in the mounds and graves.

The beauty and symmetry of these specimens have always appealed to students of prehistoric art.

It is interesting to note—and one is persuaded that it has a direct bearing upon the usages to which the aborigines put these objects—that few of the forms are found accompanying the burials, and that these few are confined to the pendant shape, the tablet, and the “boat-shaped”—not hollowed-out. That is, that the “canoe-form” is so seldom found in interments as to be considered an exception, and that even when found it is not hollowed-out.

Certain forms are common in stated localities. When one has time to list all of the “gorget” class now on exhibition in the museums, it will be possible to deduce further conclusions. Until then, what facts have already been ascertained must suffice.

Cushing thought that many of these slate and granite gorgets were bases on which bird-stones and similar effigies were mounted. Formerly I was inclined to accept Cushing’s views, but as careful study of the soft slate surfaces fails to reveal scratches, I am not now prepared to accept his suggestion. Rather let it be said that, if one is to theorize at all, the more complicated of these gorgets belong to the shamanistic individuals who were numerous in primitive tribes; that these, adorned with a variety of feathers and gewgaws, were brought before the lodge or into the central dance-ground and placed before the shaman, or that they were carried by him, or worn upon his person.

The fact that so few of these are found in burial-places leads me to believe that the problematical class was made and used largely in times previous to the interment of bodies in mounds, graves, or cliff-houses. That is, they were all very old and did not belong to mound-building tribes or to those who were buried in graves. Of course, some of them did, but I am speaking of the average, for a small per cent of them were found in burial-places. Professor Edward H. Williams, Jr., of Woodstock, Vermont, examined with great care for me the surfaces of a number of these problematical forms, testing them from a point of view of chemistry and mineralogy, to ascertain what elements in the stones weathered out and what elements remained. In the Conclusions, Volume II, I present his observations, referring to them by our museum numbers, instead of by the figure numbers used in “The Stone Age.” His observations are of great importance in indicating that many of these stones are old. How old, I do not attempt to say in years, but that the most of them were made and used long before the Christian era, I firmly believe.

There is another point with reference to the problematical class that I wish to place before readers. If there is anything that denotes peculiar development here in America on the part of stone-age man—a development dissimilar to that found anywhere else in the world, it is evinced in these strange, problematical forms. Here and there one will find a stone pendant or simple ornament similar to stone pendants elsewhere in the world. But as a class these things stand aloof as distinctly American. Compare them with stone objects from any other country in the world, and you will catch my meaning. They are unique, they are individualistic. I defy any one to pick a series in Egypt, Europe, Babylonia, or elsewhere that will type for type compare with them. They constitute a problem in American archæology. We have seen that on the forearm or chest, or the hand, or the neck, of skeleton remains some of these are found. But most of the forms have not been found buried with the dead. The few vague references to “charm-stones,” and “bull-roarers” are feeble attempts at explanation. Certainly, we do not know, in the broad sense, what they meant to stone-age man. To dismiss them with a wave of the hand as witchcraft stones is likewise a confession to ignorance and of inability to solve the problem. I find no specific reference among the works of early writers to their use. Their distribution is not confined to the territory of the Iroquois, the Creeks, the Delawares, the Eries, or the Ojibwa. While they are most numerous in the areas occupied by such tribes, that does not mean that they were used by those same Indians.

I closed my part of the Bulletin no. 2, on gorgets, Phillips Academy publication, with the same quotations with which I close this chapter on “Problematical Forms.” I see no reason to change it, although it applied to gorgets exclusively:—

“If one were to find Zuñi paraphernalia independent of any association of Zuñi people, and if the discoverer had no knowledge of the Zuñis, he could not conceive of the peculiar, not to say incredible, usages to which Zuñi charms are put. The Zuñis gave up most of their time to ceremonies. Other native tribes may have done the same.

“In the earlier Jesuit ‘Relations’ the natives are said to have devoted many days to ceremonies, incantations, etc.,—‘Works of the Devil.’ But there is no clear and tangible reference, in all of the voluminous writings of early explorers, to the more complicated gorgets, to the forms more elaborate than the merely pendant shape. The suggestion forces itself that these objects were made and used before the Discovery by Columbus.”