The hematite beds in various portions of the United States furnished the Indians with paint and with implements. Hematite, like copper, being different from other materials with which he was familiar appealed to the aborigine. Its bright red color attracted him, and although he found most of it very hard, yet he made use of it to a remarkable extent when one considers how refractory it was for him to work. Hematite is found on the surface in large quantities in portions of Missouri and Arkansas, in western Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere. Most of the hematite seems to come from Missouri. It was common there, and therefore the native made of it grooved hematite axes, which he did not do elsewhere in this country. One supposes that hematite was exchanged and bartered with remote tribes. Just as in the case of copper, the natives of Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and Michigan prized their hematite highly and made of it their most perfect plummet-shaped ornaments, hematite celts, and such other objects as it was possible for them to manufacture. The softer kinds of hematite were ground into paint, and there are frequently found on the village-sites along the Ohio River small blocks of hematite worn to flat surfaces. There is in the Arkansas region a very hard blue-red or blue-gray hematite. How the Indians cut this into symmetrical oval plummets has always been a mystery to me. If the rough nugget was ground by means of other stones or sand, one is scarcely able to conceive how the finished article was produced. The process must have been long and laborious, much more so than the manufacture of an effigy pipe, or the making of a problematical form.
Fig. 690. (S. 1–1.) Eight hematite objects from the Andover collection. In the upper right-hand corner is a hematite pebble, polished on two of its angles and rough on the other side. This illustrates how hematite was cut and ground until reduced to the desired shape. Flint scratchings are still plain on the surface. Just beneath it is a triangular bit of hematite. This is of soft hematite. The flat surface may be due to grinding in order to obtain paint. Beneath are two hematite cones. The four specimens to the left represent hematite objects in various stages of manufacture.
Fig. 691. (S. 1–2.)
These are from the collection of George Y. Hull, St. Joseph, Missouri.
1. Celt from mound, Andrew County, Missouri. Smooth and well made but not polished.
2. Plumb much pitted by age, surface find, Callaway County, Missouri.
3. A fine truncated cone used as a paint-grinder. Top of cone is worn and depressed from use. Surface find, Callaway County, Missouri.
4. Finely polished celt, surface find, Doniphan County, Kansas.
5. From an old grave near the village-site at Wathena, Kansas.
6. Axe with flat top and flat side,—a surface find, Callaway County, Missouri.
7. From an old village-site at King Hill, St. Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri.
The difference between the celts is self-evident, numbers 1 and 4 being square, and 5 and 7 oval.
The hard gray hematite referred to resists the knife and will wear an ordinary file in a short time, yet in the altar mounds of the Ohio Valley, and in the older graves (not graves of the historic period) are found numbers of these slender hematite plummets (see Fig. 700) worked from the hardest and most refractory iron ore. It is unfortunate that the earliest tribes known to the voyagers and explorers in this country had no hematite objects in use among them. If so, I fail to find references to such objects. This is unfortunate because hematite certainly was considered as more than of passing importance. It is quite likely that because it was so difficult to deduce it to the desired shape the so-called plummets were made use of, as Dr. Yates suggests, as stones used in certain ceremonies, or by shamans, or as charm-stones. I have seen unfinished hematite plummets, but cannot work out a satisfactory theory as to their manufacture.
Fig. 692. (S. 1–5.) This figure illustrates three grooved axes in the lower row; an unfinished hematite implement of unknown purpose and a hematite nodule above. Hematite axes are frequently found in Missouri, but seem rare elsewhere in the country. The groove may entirely encircle them, or be faintly indicated on the back. But usually they are grooved entirely around. The one in the lower left-hand corner has a broad, sharp, cutting edge. Naturally, because of its hardness, hematite made excellent axes. They retained their edges longer and more nearly approached the modern iron axe than any other aboriginal tool.
Fig. 693. (S. 1–2.) Hematite objects from the collection of Dr. Henry M. Whelpley, St. Louis, Missouri. Hematite plummet to the left, grooved axe in the centre, a hematite cone to the right, a celt in the lower right-hand corner.
Fig. 694. (S. about 1–3.)
Group of nine grooved hematite axes, from eastern and central Missouri. Collection of F. P. Graves, Doe Run, Missouri.
I have presented a series of figures covering all the known forms of hematites. No classification was attempted by the Nomenclature Committee, and the following is of my own make:—
| Elongated or oval hematites. | Plummet-shaped. (Fig. 700.) |
| Egg-shaped. (Fig. 699.) | |
| Egg-shaped, flattened. (Fig. 697, lower row.) | |
| Cone-shaped. (Fig. 697, upper part.) | |
| Edged hematites. | Celt form, oval. (Fig. 691, specimens 5 and 7.) |
| Celt form, beveled edge. (Fig. 693, lower right.) | |
| Axe form. (Figs. 694, 695.) | |
| Irregular forms. (Fig. 701.) | |
| Paint-stone hematite. (Fig. 690, second from the top.) |
Hematite being valuable, may have served several purposes and doubtless did. The small celts might have been set in the heads of war-clubs and securely gummed in place. I have no particular evidence as to this, but have always believed that some of them were so used. Occasionally, one finds hematite ornaments and hematite bicaves. The information one is able to impart with reference to hematite implements and their use is an illustration of the disadvantages under which we labor in dealing with some of our archæological problems. There are certain phases of prehistoric life with
Fig. 695. (S. 1–2.) Two of the best grooved axes I have ever seen are shown in this figure, from the collection of Mr. Braun, East St. Louis, Illinois. There is one in the National Museum, and one in the New York Museum, each of which weighs over ten pounds, and they are nearly as symmetrical as Mr. Braun’s largest axe.
which we are familiar. Others we know nothing of save as we learn by continuous study, by gleaning a fact here and there from the specimens themselves, and from exploration.
Fig. 696. (S. 1–1.) A beautiful hematite axe from the collection of Henry M. Whelpley, St. Louis, Missouri. This was found in central Missouri.
In the collection at Andover there are about four hundred hematite objects. The collections in the Smithsonian and American Museum of Natural History are much larger. Doubtless we should be quite surprised if we were able to reconstruct the past and see to what use these strange iron ore specimens were put by the natives who worked so long and laboriously to bring them into a state of perfection.
Mr. C. E. Brown, reporting on the hematites of his region, states:
Fig. 697. (S. 1–2.) Hematite cones. Collection of H. M. Whelpley, St. Louis, Missouri. Localities: Missouri, Illinois, and Arkansas.
“A small number of implements made of this material have been obtained in Wisconsin. These include a grooved axe, a number of celts, several cones and plummets, a gorget, and a pipe. The total number of specimens of all classes at present known to exist in local collections does not exceed thirty specimens. Nearly all come from southern Wisconsin counties. Several specimens have been obtained as far north in the state as Winnebago County. It is likely that some of these hematite implements were introduced into the state through early trades with middle Mississippi Valley tribes.”
Fig. 698. (S. 1–2.) Hematite cones. Collection of Henry M. Whelpley, St. Louis, Missouri. From Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas.
Hematite objects do not seem to have served as tools—save perhaps as celts and axes—but on the contrary they are of the problematical class. The bright color of the stone and its peculiar properties doubtless appealed to stone-age man. The fact that hematite celts are found in graves and mounds and also hematite plummets, whereas ordinary stone axes are seldom, if ever, found in mounds or graves, would strengthen the hypothesis that objects made of this peculiar stone were considered apart from the ordinary run of artifacts.
Fig. 699. (S. 1–2.) Hematite plummets, grooved in the centre. Collection of Henry M. Whelpley, St. Louis, Missouri.
Fig. 700. (S. 1–2.) These objects are also from the Andover collection and show the various types of plummets. In the centre is a fine plummet of steel gray hematite, very hard. Beneath it, a hematite a trifle softer in which there are some flaws. At the top, an unfinished hematite pecked and ground into shape, but not polished or grooved. On either side of the centre, ruder hematite plummets, and at the top, to the left, a grooved hematite object, the groove extending around the longest periphery of the object. To the right is a small plummet, grooved in the centre.
Fig. 701. (S. 1–1.) This ornament is made of hematite. It is remarkable in that both ends are decorated by notches. On the upper end there are eleven notches or incised lines; on the lower or broad end there are fourteen lines. This specimen is not a type but an anomaly. It is of heavy, pure hematite and not of stone discolored by iron oxide as are many of the ornaments. It was extremely difficult to work because of the density and hardness of the material. Aside from these facts this form is peculiar. The edges are slightly beveled. The specimen shows unmistakable evidence of antiquity because of the patina, and the cuttings (striæ) are irregular and have been made with flint and not with steel. Ross County, Ohio. Andover collection.
The reduction of the harder hematites to symmetrical plummets and cones must have been a severe task for workmen possessed of no metallic tools. Truly the ancient artisan who had the patience to cut and grind gray hematite (the hardest of all) “worked at his task with a resolute will.” It must be remembered that there are not a few but hundreds of these hematite problematical forms worked from most refractory iron ore.