Fig. 82. Fig. 82 is less in size, but of heavier proportions. It weighs two pounds, and p198 measures six and one third inches in length, by three and one third in width on the edge. Unlike the other, it has a nearly straight cutting surface; the blade, however, is curved or gouge-shaped, closely resembling the adze at present used in hollowing timbers, and it was probably applied to a similar purpose with that instrument. Its head is slightly battered, as if it had sustained blows from a hammer, or had itself been used in pounding.
It may seem incomprehensible to many persons, how these axes, being destitute of an eye for the insertion of a handle, and not even possessing the groove of the Indian stone axe, for the reception of a withe, could have been used with any effect. They were doubtless fitted in the same manner with those of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, with which, from all accounts, they seem to be identical in form.
“The Mexicans,” observes Clavigero, “made use of an axe to cut trees, which was also made of copper, and was of the same form with those of modern times, except that we put the handle in an eye of the axe, while they put the axe in an eye of the handle.”[128]
The Pacific Islanders have a sort of adze, which is formed by firmly lashing a blade of stone, with its cutting edge at right angles, to a handle, having a sharp crook at its extremity. This mode of fastening would enable the axe with the curved blade to be used with the greatest efficiency as an adze. That it was designed to be so used, seems apparent from the fact that the edge is not formed by bevelling from both sides, but from the inner surface only, precisely in the manner that the adze of the present day is ground. Fig. 83 exhibits the probable manner in which these instruments were fitted for use.
Fig. 83.
The circumstances under which these interesting relics were discovered, are detailed in the chapter on the Mounds. (See page [154].) It will be seen they were not found where, as a general and almost invariable rule, we must look for the only authentic remains of the mound-builders, viz. at the bottom of the mound. They are nevertheless classed as undoubted relics of the ancient race. The implements of the modern Indians are found, whenever they occur in the mounds, in p199 connection with human remains, in the position in which they were deposited with the dead. We have no evidence that the northern tribes of Indians possessed copper articles of this description, and but slender evidence at best that they were in use among the Indians along the Gulf.[129] A positive argument in favor of the origin imputed to them, is presented in the fact that many of the articles found both in the sepulchral and sacrificial mounds are of copper, and of similar workmanship, denoting that the mound-builders possessed the metal in considerable abundance, and were very well acquainted with its capabilities. That they have an antiquity higher than the date of the first European intercourse, is established by their form; but if this were insufficient, the evidence may be found in the fact that from immediately over them was removed the stump of a tree, originally of the largest size, which had long since fallen and decayed.
Fig. 84.