Fig. 161.—Awl.
They have almost no knowledge of working metal with the aid of heat, as is natural from the scarcity of fuel. I have, however, seen them roughly temper small articles, such as fire steels, etc., by heating them in the fire and quenching them in cold water. One native very neatly mended a musket barrel which had been cracked by firing too heavy a charge. He cut a section from another old barrel of somewhat larger caliber, which he heated until it had expanded enough to slip down over the crack, and then allowed it to shrink on.
Fig. 162.—Jade whetstones.
[Whetstones] (ipiksaun).—
Knives are generally sharpened with a file, cutting a bevel, as before mentioned, on one face of the blade only. To “set” or “turn” the edge they use pieces of steel of various shapes, generally with a hole drilled in them so that they can be hung to the breeches belt by a lanyard. One man, for instance, used about half of a razor blade for this purpose, and another a small horseshoe magnet. In former times they employed a very elegant implement, consisting of a slender rod of jade from 3 to 7 inches long, with a lanyard attached to an eye in the larger end. These were sometimes made by cutting a piece from one of the old jade adzes in the manner already described. There are a few of these whetstones still in use at the present day, and they are very highly prized. We succeeded in obtaining nine specimens, of which No. 89618 [801], Fig. 162a, has been selected as the type. It is of hard black stone, probably jade, 6.3 inches long. Through the wider end is drilled a large eye, into which is neatly spliced one end of a stout flat braid of sinew 4¾ inches long.