According to Evans, they are made by laying a flake flat side up on a stone, and chipping off around the edge with a hammer. The point struck must rest directly on the under stone, and but a thin spall is struck off at each blow.[186] Leidy observed that the Shoshoni by a quick blow strike off a segment of a quartz bowlder in such a way as to form a circular or oval implement flat on one side, convex on the other, which is used as a scraper in dressing buffalo hides;[187] and according to Knight the Australians obtain, in exactly the same way, specimens which they use as axes.[188] Peale remarks that while hides are green they are stretched on the ground and scraped with an instrument resembling an adze;[189] and Dodge says more explicitly that when the stretched skin has become hard and dry, the woman goes to work on it with an adze-like instrument, with a short handle of wood or elkhorn tied on with rawhide; holding this in one hand, she chips at the hardened skin, cutting off a thin shaving at every blow.[190]
The scrapers of this class in the Bureau collection are as follows:
A. Chipped over the entire surface to the form of the ordinary celt, except that the scraping edge is in the same plane with one face. Some have a scraping edge at each end. In a few the flat or straight face is chipped off slightly, bringing the edge toward the middleline; but this was probably done after the implement had become broken or blunted from use. When there is any polish, it is always on the flat face, showing use as an adze, or, possibly, as a plane. Varying much in width, some measuring almost the same in either direction, while others are more like the “chisel” celts, though the position of the cutting edge shows their use.
Fig. 259.—Stemless scraper, celt form.
A typical specimen ([figure 259]) is from Jackson county, Illinois; others come from Brown county and the southwestern part of the state generally; from northeastern Kentucky; Keokuk, Iowa; southwestern Wisconsin; eastern Tennessee; and central Ohio.
Fig. 260.—Stemless scraper, flake.
B. Flakes or spalls, chipped always from the concave side of the fragment. Some of the smaller specimens, usually those of somewhat circular outline, are chipped nearly, or in some cases entirely, around the edge. Figure 260 represents a specimen from Mason county, Kentucky. Others come from northeastern Kentucky; eastern Tennessee; Holt county, Missouri; Kanawha valley; southwestern Wisconsin; Miami valley, and central Ohio; Coosa valley, Alabama; Union county, Mississippi; and Savannah, Georgia.