The Champlain tercentenary

by New York . Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission; Henry Wayland Hill

The hammer stone when long and more or less slender becomes a pestle. Pestles are not common though in all a considerable number have been found in the Champlain valley. Some of these are only five or six inches long, and from this size they may be found of various lengths and weights to those over two feet long and weighing nearly thirty pounds. Some of these large pestles are finely shaped and of hard stone, so that great labor must have been expended in their making.

Several so-called pestles have been found in the region we are considering which are especially interesting because they are not only well shaped, but at one end they are carved to resemble the head of some animal. These are long and slender and should probably be regarded as clubs rather than pestles.

Without some sort of mortar the pestle would be of little use, and where one is found the other may be expected. Yet it is noticeable that mortars are very uncommon in this region. Some very excellent examples have been found, but more often little labor was expended upon the mortars beyond that necessary to hollow out the cavity. This cavity was in some cases hollowed on one side only, but often there was made a hollow on each side. These were usually circular and several inches deep, but in some of the largest mortars the hollowed portion is oval and more or less irregular. Naturally the mortars would be of considerable weight, from ten to fifty pounds.

The most common axe or hatchet was undoubtedly the celt or hand axe, already mentioned, but for heavier work larger axes were needed, and these are found, though not in large numbers. These larger axes may be six, eight or ten inches long and weigh several pounds, though we have none as large as many which have been found in the west and south. Some are very rude, others very carefully shaped and well finished. All have a groove around them by which a handle could be more firmly attached. These large grooved axes seem to us very clumsy and inefficient tools, but Champlain in his account of making a camp for the night on one of the large islands in the lake, says that his Indian companions cut down large trees with these “meschantes haches,” so that they were certainly much more useful than they appear to us to be.

There is a class of objects which seem to be more or less problematical. They are of very different shape, but always quite unlike objects designed for use as implements; always well and often very finely made and finished and of handsome material. These occur on both sides of the lake and form the chief treasures of collections. They are some of them suitable for ornament or for ceremonial purposes, but some do not appear designed for any known use. Nevertheless they are fashioned with such care and are so attractive in themselves that it is not possible to regard them as unimportant to those who made them. By different writers they have been called as they are of one form or another—ceremonial stones, banner stones, gorgets, etc. And it is more than probable that some were used as indicated by these names, but some of them are quite puzzling. The flat pieces of slate or other stone which are included among the specimens mentioned are usually drilled once or twice and were apparently attached to the clothing or hung about the neck as ornaments. Others, the so-called banner stones, are thicker, of harder material, semi-lunar or more or less crescent shape and have a large hole bored through the middle. It is possible, but not certain, that these were in some way badges of office. A very few of the so-called birdshead stones have also been found.

The discoidal stones, found especially in the south, are very rare in the Champlain valley. A few rather rough specimens have been found, but I have seen only one really fine specimen and this is small, about two and a half inches in diameter, of white quartz and very finely made.

Stone and earthenware pipes, some of them of very interesting form and finely polished are not numerous, but a goodly number have been found. The earthenware pipes are of various shape, a few tubular, more with bowl and stem, much like the modern pipe. The stone pipes are very variable in form, no two being alike, but as elsewhere, finely finished. Yet the pipes of the Champlain valley are much less elaborate than those from the mounds or other localities, and none of the earthenware specimens are effigies, or with head-shaped bowls, such as are found in New York west of the Adirondacks.

A very interesting form of pipe has been found in Swanton, on the Vermont side of the lake. A dozen or more of these have been obtained. They are simply straight tubes of stone from seven to twelve inches long and about an inch in diameter. They very closely resemble the tubular pipes of the Pacific coast and South America.

It is noticeable that the pipes of the Champlain valley rarely imitate any human or animal form. I know of only one which resembles an animal and two or three which bear on the bowl the human face.