The sinkers in the collection may be divided into four classes, viz: A, entirely unworked; B, notched on the sides; C, encircled by a groove; and D, perforated. Conversely, stones under all these different heads may have served other and widely different purposes.
Of the functions of class A, only those who have seen them in use can speak. Stevens mentions that some tribes inclose a round stone in a sort of net and attach it to a line in fishing;[46] and no other use can be imagined for some of the specimens in the Bureau collection.
Specimens of class B are found along water courses in such situations as to leave no doubt of their use as sinkers;[47] they were attached to grapevines and dragged on the bottom of streams to frighten fish into nets or traps.[48] Those in the collection are made of ordinary flat water-worn pebbles, with notches rudely chipped in the sides; a number are from southeastern Tennessee.
Of class C, while many were perhaps sinkers, more were club heads and slungshots or hammers. A number have been obtained from Savannah, Georgia, more or less worked, some being rounded, with grooves of varying depths and sizes. Small stones of this form are used by Greenland fishermen as sinkers;[49] and according to Thatcher, a large stone is by the Indians made fast to a sinking line at each end of a net, and the net is spread in the water by sinkers at different parts of it.[50]
Class D will be referred to under the head “Perforated stones,” from which they can be discriminated only arbitrarily.
A number of roughly chipped, somewhat crescent-shaped specimens of argillite, from half a pound to 2 pounds in weight, collected in Montgomery county, North Carolina, may have been used as sinkers.
Perforated Stones.
Only the larger or rougher perforated stones used as implements are included in this class.
Several perforated pieces of steatite, some mere rough fragments, others with the edges smooth and dressed to a somewhat symmetrical outline, have been collected about Savannah, Georgia. Some of these have been drilled, others gouged through apparently with a slender flint. In the latter group the little projections left by the tool have been worn smooth. The hole may be near one end or about the center. Similar pieces have been found in Forsyth county, Georgia; one of these is worked to an irregular pentagon and smoothly finished. From Haywood county, North Carolina, there are some very rough fragments, apparently just as they were picked up, except for the perforation; and a number of pieces of perforated pottery are from Montgomery county, North Carolina.
Perforated stones were used by the southern Indians to drag along the bottoms of streams and frighten fish into their nets and traps.[51] Four disks 4 to 5½ inches in diameter, with handles from 13 to 17 inches long, were found in a cave at Los Angeles, California,[52] and objects of this character were, according to Schumacher, used by the Santa Barbara Indians as weights for wooden spades.[53] According to Abbott many perforated stones are found close to rivers and on shores in such positions as to leave no doubt of their use as sinkers.[54] Similar stones were used as sinkers by the Scandinavians in comparatively recent times; by the Bechuanas for grinding grasshoppers, spiders, etc., and also as weights for digging-sticks; by some savages in the Pacific islands as clubs; by the Icelanders for breaking up salted fish.[55] They were used by the Iroquois as weights for fire drills;[56] by the Eskimo as clubs, having a rawhide handle secured by a knot.[57] According to Dale,[58] Layard,[59] Griesbach,[60] and Gooch,[61] they were used by natives of southern Africa as root-diggers (to remove earth from the roots), as weapons, and to give weight to digging-sticks. They were also used by the Peruvian Indians to be thrown with a stick. Disk-shaped and cylindrical throwing stones, perforated for the stick, are found among the Swiss lake dwellings.[62] According to Evans[63] they were used mostly as hammers or clubs. They are hard and battered on the edges; sinkers would be of softer stone.