[133] A similar needle from a mound in Ohio has been shown by C. L. Metz and by F. W. Putnam, Rep. of the Peabody Museum, 1880 to 1886, III, p. 452. The Point Barrow Eskimos use a similar one (J. Murdock, IXth Ann. Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnology, 1887-88, p. 318, fig. 325).
[134] It reminds one somewhat (in that it is curved and pointed) of an instrument designated, and that manifestly wrongly, by Moorehead as a hair-pin (see Moorehead, l. c., p. 271, fig. 410, under No. 4). Jeanne Carr tells of needles made usually of the strong wing bones of the hawk, used to keep the strands in place when the basket weaver left his work. These were handed down from mother to daughter generation after generation and regarded as valuable possessions. (The Californian, 1892, No. 5, p. 603.)
3. Rough Awl-like Implements of the Lower Strata.
We have chosen to discuss a number of implements from the lower strata under this separate head. Although some of these were probably used as awls, yet along with others with which they form a small group they cannot easily be considered with the other implements of this class. [Plate 7], which represents typical bone implements of the lower layers, shows the greater number of these peculiar shapes in figs. 1 to 10. Altogether about fourteen of these awl-like implements were found in stratum VIII, five in stratum IX and four in stratum X. When one considers that from layers IX and X, only small sections were explored, the relative number of these implements must excite some interest. The awl-like and needle-like objects of [pl. 9], although but little worked, are yet characterized by a definite fundamental form, different from that shown in the objects represented in [pl. 7], figs. 1 to 10.[[135]] They represent simply bone splinters of the most varied forms such as would be made by accident. To be sure, there were isolated bone splinters in other places in the excavation, probably used as implements, as would naturally occur in a shellmound. In all of these latter cases, however, the character of the objects was, owing to the form of the bones and to the accidental or typical intention of their use, completely different. The objects shown in figs. 1 to 10 of this plate are made of fragments of somewhat thick long bones. All of them have been much used and the upper ends are strongly rounded and worn. Their use was evidently intentional both with reference to their more general and their typical uses. They do not belong to a peculiar type of implements because it is evident from their form that they were used for many purposes.
Some, as figs. 6, 7, and 8, 1-8919, 1-8918 (VIII), 1-8979 (IX), have an awl-like pointed form and may accordingly have been used as such an implement. Others, as figs. 1, 3, 4, and 10, 1-8983 (VIII), 1-9069 (X), 1-9068 (X), 1-9072 (X), although in general awl-like, are blunter and can hardly have been put to the same use as these forms just mentioned. Objects like 1-8980, [pl. 7], fig. 5; 1-8996, [pl. 7], fig. 9, and possibly also 1-8871, [pl. 7], fig. 2, have such broad and blunt ends that for them characterization as “awl-like” would be entirely unsuitable and their use must be explained in some other way. The tie that holds them together is, therefore, in no way that of similar use but rather of analogous origin. They comprise a large number of implements having different uses. What is common to them is the similarity of the way in which they were obtained. Their use was determined by the chance form which they thereby received. There is before us then a class of the most primitive ethnological implements of which we have knowledge, in which, as in the oldest known implement of the human period, the natural form of the object determines the use, rather than the use the individual form.
[135] The principal smaller forms figured from southern California by Putnam, l. c., Pl. IX, figs. 16-17.
4. Implements of the Shape of Paper-cutters.
It is natural that in so large a number of bone implements this shape also should be represented. Five belonging to two different types have already been discussed under the grave finds. Altogether the amount of material of this character obtained from the upper strata of the mound is remarkably small. Only a small number of fragments were found, of which only a fragment of the point, 1-8803, from stratum VIII is represented in fig. 29.
In the deeper strata the case was entirely different. There are from these layers no perfect implements, only fragments, but their number is in proportion to what one would expect, or even greater. Some of these show a variety of form and a degree of ornamentation which was hardly to be expected among the finds of the mound in general and least of all among the specimens obtained from the lower strata. Little as the well formed implements, which the fragments figured in [pl. 7], figs. 11-17, represent, appear to resemble the rough awl-like implements on the same plate and which have been derived from the same strata, there is yet no doubt possible that the two classes of implements must have been used by the same people.