PERFORATORS
These most interesting objects are widespread throughout the United States. Wherever chipped implements abound, they are to be found.
Their classification is:—
1. Cross-section.
(A) Round. (B) Quadrangular or irregular.
(A) Without stem. (All types shown in Fig. 196.) (B) With stem.
(a) Stem expanding gradually. (b) Stem expanding suddenly.
Many objects heretofore called drills are in my opinion hairpins and cloak-fasteners, even in early historic times. Blankets or cloaks draped over the shoulders, and joined together on the chest, had on the edge loops of buckskin. A decorated stick or long bone was run through these loops to hold the covering together. In prehistoric times it is not unlikely that long bone pins and flint so-called drills were used for this purpose. Many of the so-called drills are too irregular in the cross-section to have been of much service in the real drilling. And if one inspects specimens in which the drilling was incomplete, one will be surprised at the percentage of cores in the bottom of the holes. This is especially true in the Mississippi Valley and the South, where wild reeds and canes grow.
I cannot believe that we have satisfactorily explained these drills.
The generally accepted theory, indicated by the name we have given them, that they were used in drilling, seems to me to be incorrect. I conclude that more of them served as coat-fasteners, hairpins, and ornaments.
Fig. 195. (S. 1–1.) Drills from Colorado sites. Materials: jasper and chalcedony. Collection of Luther A. Norland, La Jara, Colorado.
One must not forget that both sexes of Indians wore their hair long and ornamented the locks with copper bands, narrow strips of bead-work, feathers, etc. Narrow beaded bands were popular among certain tribes, not only as hair ornaments, but were worn across the forehead, while ornamented tassels of various kinds hung down on either side, or behind.
It must be remembered that long, slender shell pins, not unlike the long drills, were worn as hairpins. These could not by any possibility have served as drills, as they are too fragile. Shell hairpins were easier to make and, naturally, more common than those of flint or copper. The manufacture of the long, slender, drill-shaped objects was no more difficult than the making of fine flint implements, but it is my opinion that there was greater risk of breakage.
Another class of perforators which will fall, on form, under the classification presented above, was frequently called “reamers.” Illustrations are presented of these in Figs. 198 and 203. Reamers apparently were used for different purposes from the long drills. No sensible man will conclude that they were both identical in purpose. A reamer would be more effective for punching holes in soft, thin substances and drilling shallow holes in wood. I suppose buckskin was perforated by the means of bone awls, although the smaller reamer might be used for such purposes. The shorter drills seem to me to be more suitable for drilling in stone than the longer ones.
An ironclad classification on size and form is, from a mechanical and technical point of view, impossible in this class of objects. The reamers shown in Fig. 198 have both sharp and dull points and are classed together. One may drill with a dull-pointed stone drill, not with a sharp slender point. It will invariably break. The sharpest reamers were for perforating, for lancing, etc., in soft substances, such as leather and flesh.
There are in all museum collections many rough, thick perforators. It would appear that these are more suitable for drilling than other forms. I never believed that the long, slender, beautifully worked perforators were used for perforating. I think that they would break; I have often experimented to a limited extent with these and find that the rougher drills shown in Fig. 194 are much better for drilling purposes than the long slender ones.
Drills with stems expanding either gradually or suddenly, placed side by side, would appear to one who was familiar with these things as quite different objects. If the term “stem expanding suddenly” means that these two belong to the same class and are used for an identical purpose, one may with propriety retort that the real purpose is unknown save by inference, that one does not believe that these two specimens were used for precisely the same purpose.
Fig. 196. (S. 2–3.) This cut shows seven drills representing the types in our classification from all parts of the country. They are with stem, without stem, stem expanding gradually, stem expanding suddenly, notches in the side, base straight, concave, and convex. Phillips Academy collection.
Fig. 197. (S. 1–1.) Three peculiar obsidian reamers with long stems and short points. Collection of F. M. Gilham, Highland Springs, California. The figure at the bottom is a pointed obsidian knife.
More skill, time, and care were required in the manufacture of these more beautiful, delicate “drills,” than in the making of common perforators. Again, the ancient Indians were saving and never extravagant. It is to be thought that they would scarcely be so foolish as to employ in a hazardous operation the finest implements in their possession. Yet, if an Indian found it necessary to employ his finest and most precious object in a ceremony or for the purpose of appeasing the gods, or as a gift to the dead, he would not hesitate to do so. He placed all such desires and thoughts first. This is characteristic of Indian nature.
Witness Professor Holmes’s discovery of remarkable flint implements in a spring near Afton, Indian Territory. His contention is that these were gift offerings.[[4]]
Fig. 198. (S. 1–1.) Five jasper and obsidian reamers or small drills. Collection of C. F. Case, Sams Valley, Oregon.
We seldom find axes, pestles, spades, and grooved stone hammers in mounds or graves. I never knew of more than two instances in the whole United States where pestles were buried in ancient graves, and I never knew of a single find of pitted hammer-stones in a prehistoric mound or grave. This does not mean that the Indian regarded labor as beneath him. It means that he drew a special line of demarcation between those ideals which concerned his “mystery,” and the affairs of everyday life. His religion, or as unthinking people have called it, his superstition, he placed first.
He worshiped the Unknown in the air and sky above. Naturally, he showed respect to the dead, and perhaps not so much to the person of the dead as to that estate into which the deceased entered. Truly, one might say that “nothing unclean or common” was placed by him with the dead, or offered as a sacrifice to the spirits. For this very reason I maintain that while the Indian would spend hours of rigorous laborious work upon bringing to perfection certain art forms or weapons, he would not employ these in the manufacture of commoner implements, ornaments, or other forms. But on the contrary, prompted by his high regard for stone objects of the character of these long and slender flint ornaments, he made use of more serviceable and common things as tools. Therefore, it was natural for him to select a reed, or a stout hickory stick, or a heavy flint drill instead of an object that will chip or break in the course of five or ten minutes drilling.
There is yet another use to which I believe some of the finest perforators was put, which I state as my opinion merely.
Among the Crows, Mandans, Sioux, and other Indians were common, in the days of Lewis and Clark, necklaces of long bones of three to four and sometimes five inches in length arranged in parallel rows. These were highly prized. One of these breast ornaments was presented to me by Mah-een-gonce, a chief of the Ojibway, at a squaw dance in August, 1909, at White Earth Reservation.
While it is my opinion that such objects as are shown in Figs. 199 and 202 were not used as drills, I should like to offer the suggestion that they served other purposes. Perhaps they were made use of as hairpins, possibly they were fastened to strips of buckskin, several of them being worn in parallel rows. Mounted in that manner they would form unique ornaments and appeal to aboriginal fancy.