WINGED PROBLEMATICAL FORMS
This remarkable class of unknown objects will be studied first in the unfinished form. Previous to this page, in Figs. 320 to 328; and subsequently in Figs. 331 and 356, I have presented nearly all the steps or stages of process of manufacture in problematical forms. It would appear to readers that the accumulation of these types is an easy matter; it is not, but requires much time and patience and an endless correspondence. I was more than ten years in accumulating a hundred unfinished problematical forms. These all vary according to locality and material. There are local cultures, developed in this form of object as in flint or other types.
There are some sites in this country where shale or slate occur; notably at Martin’s Creek, Pennsylvania, where we obtained many unfinished butterfly and winged stones of Pennsylvania form. These materials are not as hard as granite, but they are not always soft. So far as I can ascertain, aboriginal man visited such places and secured masses of material. He reduced this by pecking or pointing with stone hammers or round blocks of flint (for a flint pebble makes a better hammer than other stones).
I have, under each of these figures mentioned, stated at some length what stages of workmanship the objects represent. Reference to these in conjunction with reading the following paragraphs will acquaint readers with the essential facts.
After pecking with stone hammers the surfaces and sides of the slate or shale until he had reduced it to desired shape, the worker then began to grind the stone. The scratches on several of these specimens indicate that they were ground vigorously with other gritty stones, or rubbed back and forth on the edges of larger stones. There is no other way to account for the scratches on the surfaces.
Fig. 330. (S. 1–2.) From the collection of Stephen Van Rensselaer. Found near Orange, New Jersey. These are typical New Jersey types of ornaments or problematical forms, and very interesting specimens. The materials are red and gray slate.
The average tablet, a flat gorget, must have been made from a piece of slate or water-worn shale. It is not to be supposed that the native would put himself to the trouble and inconvenience of reducing a block of slate larger than the required size. Large fragments of slate, shale, granite, and blooded quartz he did make into winged objects. Manifestly, he could not make a winged object out of a thin, flat stone (such as our Committee have classified under “laminae”). The flat tablets, gorgets and pendants are more numerous than the winged objects, for the reason that they are easy to make. Inspection of the specimens illustrated in this chapter will prove the point I make that many of these objects required little work, save in shaping the edges. Man cut or ground the edges until they were concave or convex or angular to suit his fancy.
Fig. 331. (S. 1–1.) Andover collection. These are presented to show the use of the reed drill. Unfortunately, the camera does not show the perforations and the central cores as it should. What appears to be a rim in each specimen is the dark circular depression about the core left by the reed drill.
Most of these tablets were ground out, or the stone was nice and smooth, so no grinding was necessary save on the edges. The tablet was then ready for perforation, and he perforated it and rubbed and polished it until the scratches had disappeared. In the case of the winged stones much more care was necessary. The crescents and the ridged stones being thicker were not as easily broken, and we find fewer broken specimens among them than of the winged class. There were more broken “butterfly” or winged stones than of any other class. Because of the thin wings it was necessary for him to work very carefully, and probably to place one half of the specimen on a raised surface covered with buckskin or hide and to rub that until he was ready to turn the specimen and work on the other wing. At best the process was a long and laborious one, as the many unfinished objects of this character attest.
Fig. 332. (S. 1–1.) Andover collection. Short winged object, showing that perforation was made by means of a reed drill, the core remaining in the hole. Reed drills were made use of in many of the larger and problematical forms. Another example of reed drilling is shown in Fig. 331.
A study of the unfinished winged objects in the Andover collection furnishes one with a great deal of information. When I said that we had a hundred unfinished winged problematical forms, I meant of those with exaggerated wings, those in which the wings are the prominent feature. Of all classes, unfinished objects of all the types shown in the outlines (Fig. 292), we have over one thousand.
The larger objects in this series indicate that, after being quarried, or, if not quarried, after the blocks were chipped or hammered, the process of pecking followed next. Then grinding, scratching, or cutting. Last of all came rubbing with softer materials and polishing. Another thing that we proved was that most of these winged objects were drilled with a reed drill. Illustrations of the core remaining in the centre of the perforation are shown in Figs. 331 and 332. It is also apparent that the specimens were not drilled until they were nearly completed. A specimen is worked down until quite thin before the drilling is undertaken. Apparently, the pecking has been ended, most of the grinding done, and the fine grinding and polishing remain to be completed after the specimen is drilled.
Mr. Paul S. Tooker of Westfield, New Jersey, sent me a hundred and fifty New Jersey specimens for study and description in “The Stone Age.” Of these, sixteen represent the problematical-ceremonial class. Unfortunately, they came too late to be illustrated in “The Stone Age.”
I was pleased to observe in the collection a gorget of pink, hard sandstone, curiously mottled, being on one side pink, and on the other variegated with yellow and green bands. Apparently this stone was considered unusual by the Indians. They had drawn five wigwams near one end, and a snowshoe and other objects at the other end and in the centre. There are four notches on each side, made V-shaped, and six in each end.
In New Jersey the winged stones are more frequently of shale, quartzite, and granite than of banded slate. This is true of Delaware and lower New York. The stones are thin in the centre (see Figs. 329 and 330) and the wings usually curve downwards instead of being at right angles, or expanding from the perforations. These New Jersey types to me suggest a bird in motion, and may stand for the “thunder bird,” so common in American mythology.
Mr. Tooker possesses a broken butterfly form of mica schist. This has been perforated through the centre at right angles to the original long perforation, and was worn as an ornament until the rough, broken edges became polished through use. The New Jersey specimens look old and do not appear to show white man’s influence in any way.
In the collection was a bit of broken winged object (like that shown in Fig. 338) of the blooded quartz stone from Arkansas. This specimen was probably secured by the New Jersey natives through exchange.
Dr. Beauchamp’s remarks on certain specimens in Fig. 337 should be quoted, and I insert them, save the change from his numbers, which do not correspond with mine:—
Fig. 333. (S. 1–4.) Northern Illinois and northern Indiana types, from W. A. Holmes’s collection, Chicago. The winged type and also several that defy classification are present; notably, those on the upper row, the heart-shaped objects at either end, and the central unknown form with three perforations. The heart-form is occasionally found in the United States, but is rare. Just what significance it carries, I am unable to state.
Fig. 334. (S. about 1–3.) A group of problematical forms, from the collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most of these are in banded slate, although two are in granite. They will fall under three or four subdivisions of the classification.
Fig. 335. (S. 1–1.) Problematical forms found in Cumberland County, New Jersey. The smaller one appears to be finished and is highly polished. The larger one is unfinished. The hole is drilled about halfway through, leaving a projection which indicates that the boring was done with a hollow instrument, probably a reed. These specimens are in the collection of George Hampton, Bridgeton, New Jersey.
Fig. 336. (S. 1–1.) Side view of the large form in Fig. 352. George Hampton’s collection.
Fig. 337. (S. 2–3.) These are reproduced from plates illustrating Dr. Wm. M. Beauchamp’s “Polished Stone Articles used by the New York Aborigines,” New York State Museum Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 18. They have been drawn, which shows the bands in the stone better than do half-tones. These types are found in New York State and Canada, Ohio, and Indiana. As one passes into Michigan or south of Kentucky, the forms and materials change. Attention is called to the central object, perforated on either side. This was originally a winged object, but becoming broken was perforated after the manner of a tablet and used in a way different from that the original form would indicate. It must be observed, in studying these problematical forms, that the perforations or drilling are even in all winged types and the large objects, but in the flat tablets the holes were rimmed out, and are wide on the face, and small on the reverse side.
“Next from the right is a beautiful article and comes from Fabius or Pompey, much resembling one in the State Museum from that vicinity. It is made of a beautiful olive-green striped slate, and in form is like a slender pickaxe, having a central ridge along both sides, from end to end. Each end has a slight projection. In the centre, on one side, is a partially effaced ornament. It is seven inches wide by one and one fourth deep, and the orifice is nine sixteenths of an inch in diameter. No finer example of this form is on record.
“To the left is a pick-shaped article of black slate, unique in some respects. The centre is enlarged by a distinct concave sweep on either side, terminating in a central flattened surface. Near this is a lateral perforation on either hand, drilled precisely as in the gorgets. No other has been reported with holes like these, and if the stone had been placed on a staff, they might have served to attach pendant ornaments. The sides are covered with transverse lines, suggesting tallies. The blades are thin, and the total length is six inches, with a depth of one and one fourth inches. It was found on a camp-site on the Seneca River in 1875. The ends are abrupt, and may be either broken or unfinished.
“In the lower left-hand corner is a thick, crescent-formed banner-stone from Skaneateles Lake, made of green striped slate, and one inch deep by three and three eighths wide. The ends are rounded, and the orifice is a little over half an inch in diameter, contracting slightly in the interior of the stone. There are no village-sites near, and but few small camps.”
Occasionally, there are fine winged objects found in New England, and I present one in the lower specimen in the photogravure plate, Fig. 338. This was found in Massachusetts and is of mottled granite. But most of the New England forms are such as are shown in Fig. 339, from the collection of Mr. Deisher, and Fig. 342, from the collection of Professor G. H. Perkins, Burlington, Vermont, and the unfinished one, Fig. 322. It will be observed that these are quite different from the winged types of Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio which we have illustrated. In the photogravure plate, Fig. 338, is a small ceremonial to the right, of hard, mottled granite from Illinois. A blooded quartz object from Arkansas is shown to the left, while at the top is a beautiful “butterfly form” from southern Ohio.
Of the form and distribution of Wisconsin problematical stones, Mr. Charles E. Brown writes:—
Fig. 338. (S. 1–2.)
Problematical forms in stone. Localities: Ohio, Massachusetts, Arkansas. Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, collection.
“Wisconsin has produced a large number of specimens of banner-stones, many of which are of exceptional beauty of material and workmanship. Unfinished specimens are occasionally found. Portions of broken specimens (the wings) were sometimes perforated for use as gorgets or pendants. In the manufacture of local banner-stones slate, syenite, granite, rhyolite, quartz, and other rocks were employed. The range of form is quite wide and includes many of the types described from Ohio and other states. A few forms and varieties from other regions, not yet described, occur here. The following notes are based upon our present knowledge of their forms and distribution:—
1. Tablet or rectangular form. Fairly common and widely distributed in southern Wisconsin. Specimens have been recovered in Kenosha, Dane, Monroe, La Crosse, Fond du Lac, Winnebago, Waupaca, and Outagamie counties. 2. Square form. Specimens of this form are equally as common as the preceding. Examples have been collected in Washington, Waukesha, Dodge, Jefferson, Dane, Sauk, Grant, Sheboygan, and Winnebago counties. 3. Reel-shaped form. The only known specimens have come from Green Lake and Outagamie counties.
Fig. 339. (S. 1–5.) Problematical form. Material: greenish slate. Collection of H. K. Deisher, Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
Fig. 340. (S. about 3–10.) Problematical form of cannel coal. This was found in Mercer County, Ohio, in a gravel-pit. It was on the breast of a skeleton. Phillips Academy collection.
Fig. 341. (S. 1–2.) Unfinished winged object. From the collection of Stephen Van Rensselaer, Newark, New Jersey. New Jersey type of winged stone is interesting in that the wings are graceful and sloping, usually narrow, and often angular. Compare Figs. 317, 341, and 342. It will be observed that although there is varying weight and width in the wings, yet the three specimens present certain characteristics in common.
Fig. 342. (S. 1–2.) Winged problematical stone. Vermont. University of Vermont collection.
Fig. 343. (S. 1–1.) Winged form of mottled granite. Wisconsin Historical Society; kindness of the Wisconsin Archeologist. One can distinguish this form at once as typical of the Wisconsin-Michigan region.
Description of Fig. 344.
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1. Banded slate, Kentucky. 2. Mottled granite, Trigg County. 3. Banded slate, Meade County. 4. Soft green slate, Madison County. 5. Compact blackstone, Livingston County. 6. Steatite, Madison County. 7. Greenstone, Franklin County. 8. Hard red material, Livingston County. 9. Blooded quartz, Hancock County. 10. Slate, black, Trigg County. 11. Blooded quartz, Oldham County. 12. Green banded slate, Madison County. 13. Quartz, Trigg County.
These specimens, found in Kentucky, are beautiful, highly finished, and represent the acme of stone-age art in the problematical class. The double-winged crescents at the top on either side are to be noted. Also the fine crescent, no. 5. No. 9, of blooded quartz, is a type somewhat common in the South, but very seldom found in the Ohio Valley and never in the East, or west of a line drawn between Omaha, Nebraska, and Dallas, Texas.
No. 13 is of that same beautiful blooded quartz, which material was selected by the natives because of its fine texture and brilliant colors. This plate emphasizes that while winged objects, as a general proposition, may be somewhat alike, yet in the detailed form and material they are different, and those of one section can be distinguished from those of another.
Fig. 344. (S. 1–4.) Problematical forms. B. H. Young’s collection, Louisville, Kentucky.
Fig. 345. (S. 1–1.) Ceremonial axe of stone. Found at Thornhill Lake, Volusia County, Florida. From “Certain Sand Mounds, St. Johns River, pt. II.” This is one of the angular Southern forms, with expanded wings. It is not of the butterfly type. It reminds one very strongly of a Wisconsin-Michigan form which is typified in Fig. 343. There are few of the winged stones found in Georgia, Florida, or Alabama.
Figs. 343, 349, 357 illustrate the Wisconsin types. Other specimens from Ohio, Indiana, etc., illustrate the more widespread Wisconsin types.
It often happens that a later tribe makes use of an object of ancient form and special purpose, for some service totally foreign to the mind of the original owner.
This fact is illustrated in specimen number 38,205, from our Andover exhibit, shown in Fig. 352, which has a remarkable and interesting history. It was found in Indiana on the banks of the Wabash River, on the site of a Miami Indian village. The Miamis lived on that site about seventy years ago, and the specimen was found shortly after they departed for their reservation west of the Mississippi. As will be seen, the object is an unfinished ceremonial, or possibly an ornament. Material, banded slate. The maker had done little more than block it out roughly. The specimen is clearly prehistoric and is covered with patina. It has every appearance of age. It was picked up from its ancient site by some Miami Indian who was in search of a suitable instrument for tapping sugar-trees. As the specimen was of the right weight, and shaped something like a hammer-head, he lashed it in a stick and used it as an instrument with which to drive pegs or chips into the sugar-maples. The original handle has been preserved, although it is now frail and much decayed.
Fig. 346. (S. 1–3.) Four winged objects and one pick-shaped from the collection of A. L. Addis, Albion, Indiana. Attention is called to the central object, a crescent with the broad ends. This type is interesting, and different from others. Several have been found, but no one can explain the purpose of these peculiar projections on the tips of the wings.
Moreover, the specimen carries a moral. We cannot explain the purpose of the “ceremonial” or unknown or “problematical” class through information or data obtained from modern Indians, and so far as prehistoric times are concerned, modern folk-lore sheds little light on them. In this case the Indian made use of an unfinished ceremonial as a rude hand-hammer. No glimmer of what that specimen stood for in the mind of prehistoric man entered his head. He saw a convenient tool and he made use of it accordingly. How long ago that ceremonial was manufactured, it is impossible to determine. One fact stands forth indisputably, and that is that the modern Miami had not the faintest conception of the original or true import of the object he used as a hammer.
Fig. 347. (S. 1–1.) Very highly polished slate winged object. Collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was originally of butterfly form, such as is shown at the top in Fig. 350, and my theory is that it was broken and the wings ground down until this form resulted.
Fig. 348. (S. 1–6.) This is a group of interesting problematical forms showing type specimens from Indiana. The double crescent in the centre is one of the finest of its class I have ever seen. On either side are two ridged gorgets, the elevation being horn-like in character. Some tubular pipes from California are shown at the top. Some of the ornaments are quite unusual. The light-colored one to the left of the lower part of the double crescent is made of galena. The bar-amulet, just below the central tubular pipe, is a fine specimen. Collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Fig. 349. (S. 2–3.) Problematical forms from the collection of Beloit College, Wisconsin. The two objects in the centre are not unlike Ohio Valley forms, but the upper one to the left and the one in the lower right-hand corner are typical of Wisconsin. These two are made of mottled granite and beautifully worked.
Fig. 350. (S. about 1–2.) Types of finished problematical forms. Ohio Valley. Of these four winged stones, I would call attention to the one in the lower right-hand corner. It is very unusual to find an object with wings so short that it appears more like a reel on which to wind cord than a true problematical stone. It is believed that it originally had longer wings, but these becoming broken, were ground down until nothing remained but what appears in the present specimen. The object is fully finished, and highly polished. Phillips Academy collection, Andover, Massachusetts.
Fig. 351. (S. 1–3.) A group of winged objects from the collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Material: banded slate and black slate. One or two are not entirely completed. An imitation of horns in stone is shown in the lower specimen. These antler-shaped stones are not uncommon, although one as pronounced as this type is rare. It is possible that they were part of a head-dress, as the perforation would indicate it was worn with the points extending upwards.
Fig. 352. (S. 2–5.) Found in Indiana. Material: banded slate. Handle, hickory. Phillips Academy collection.