Perforators.
CHARACTER AND USES.
The implements variously classed by different writers as awls, drills, needles, rimmers or reamers, and the like, seem to represent a graded series, and as no distinction can be made in the different kinds, if, indeed, there is any room for distinction, they are grouped under one term, “perforators.”
Fig. 244.—Stemmed chipped flint, very rough.
Very few of the specimens could be used as drills, as most of them are too thin; only those with a rhomboidal or triangular section would seem adapted to this purpose, and the majority even of these seem too fragile. It is more probable that drilling was done with a stick or horn, with sand as a cutting medium, except in the thin tablets of slate or similar stone and in shells. The thicker flints would answer very well for this purpose, and the countersunk holes appear to indicate such an instrument. For sewing, bone would be more easily worked, and better suited than flint. The double-pointed slender specimens may have been used for bait-holders in fishing; bone implements of a similar shape, with a hole drilled at the middle for attaching a line, have been seen in use among the Indians of Florida.
Some such implement was no doubt used in the manner of a burin, especially in making the fine lines on the ornamented shells or stones; certain flints in the collection may have served such a purpose.
Lubbock considers it proved that the stone of which ornaments, carved axes, etc., are made could be worked with flint, and that the engraving on the Scotch rocks, even on granite, was executed with this material;[174] and Bushmen are known to use triangular pieces of flint for cutting figures in rocks.[175] Evans[176] observes that there are five ways of making holes in stone, viz.: (1) Chiseling or picking, with “picks,” “celts,” or “drills” of flint or other stone; (2) boring with a solid borer, as wood, hard or soft, or horn with sand and water; (3) grinding with a tubular grinder, as horn, cane, elder, etc., with sand and water; (4) drilling with a stone drill, e.g., of flint or sandstone; (5) drilling or punching with metal. It should be remembered that there are no evidences of the use of any metal except copper for economic purposes by the aborigines of the United States; and nearly everything of this material seems to have been ornamental in character. Bancroft says that the Nootka, in boring in wood, use a bird-bone drill worked between the hands,[177] while according to Schumacher, the Santa Barbara Indians chip out rough disks of shell, pierce them with a flint drill, and enlarge the hole with a slender, round piece of sandstone.[178] The Atlantic coast Indians drilled shell beads with a nail stuck in a cane or stick, rolling the drill on their thighs with the right hand, and holding the shell in the left;[179] and the southern Indians, according to C. C. Jones, pierced shell beads with heated copper drills.[180] Evans has found that ox-horn and sand make good borers,[181] while low tribes on the Amazon make crystal tubes an inch in diameter and up to 8 inches long by rubbing and drilling with a flexible shoot of wild plantain, twilled between the hands, with sand and water;[182] and Tylor expresses the opinion that such operations are not the result of high mechanical skill, but merely of the most simple and savage processes.[183]
Fig. 245.—Perforator, not stemmed.