Their hatchets were made of stone. Their shape is similar to that of the wedges with which we cleave our wood, about half a foot long, and broad in proportion; they are made like a wedge, sharp at one end, but rather blunter than our wedges. As this hatchet must be fixed on a handle, there was a notch made all round the thick-end. To fasten it, they split a stick at one end, and put the stone between it, so that the two halves of the stick come into the notches of the stone; then they tied the two split ends together with a rope or something like it, almost in the same way as smiths fasten the instrument with which they cut off iron, to a split stick. Some of these stone-hatchets were not notched or furrowed at the upper end, and it seems they only held those in their hands in order to hew or strike with them, and did not make handles to them. Most of the hatchets which I have seen, consisted of a hard rock-stone: but some were made of a fine, hard, black, apyrous stone. When the Indians intended to fell [[38]]a thick strong tree, they could not make use of their hatchets, but for want of proper instruments employed fire. They set fire to a great quantity of wood at the roots of the tree, and made it fall by that means. But that the fire might not reach higher than they would have it, they fastened some rags to a pole, dipped them into water, and kept continually washing the tree, a little above the fire. Whenever they intended to hollow out a thick tree for a canoe, they laid dry branches all along the stem of the tree, as far as it must be hollowed out. They then put fire to those dry branches, and as soon as they were burnt, they were replaced by others. Whilst these branches were burning, the Indians were very busy with wet rags, and pouring water upon the tree, to prevent the fire from spreading too far on the sides and at the ends. The tree being burnt hollow as far as they found it sufficient, or as far as it could without damaging the canoe, they took the above described stone-hatchets, or sharp flints, and quartzes, or sharp shells, and scraped off the burnt part of the wood, and smoothened the boats within. By this means they likewise gave it what shape they pleased. Instead of cutting with a hatchet such a piece of wood as was necessary for making [[39]]a canoe, they likewise employed fire. A canoe was commonly between thirty and forty feet long. The chief use of their hatchets was, according to the unanimous accounts of all the Swedes, to make good fields for maize-plantations; for if the ground where they intended to make a maize-field was covered with trees, they cut off the bark all round the trees with their hatchets, especially at the time when they lose their sap. By that means the tree became dry, and could not take any more nourishment, and the leaves could no longer obstruct the rays of the sun from passing. The smaller trees were then pulled out by main force, and the ground was a little turned up with crooked or sharp branches.
Instead of knives they were satisfied with little sharp pieces of flint or quartz, or else some other hard kind of a stone, or with a sharp shell, or with a piece of a bone which they had sharpened.
At the end of their arrows they fastened narrow angulated pieces of stone; they made use of them, having no iron to make them sharp again, or a wood of sufficient hardness: these points were commonly flints or quartzes, but sometimes likewise another kind of a stone. Some employed the bones of animals, or the [[40]]claws of birds and beasts. Some of these ancient harpoons are very blunt, and it seems that the Indians might kill birds and small quadrupeds with them; but whether they could enter deep into the body of a great beast or of a man, by the velocity which they get from the bow, I cannot ascertain; yet some have been found very sharp and well made.
They had stone pestles, about a foot long, and as thick as a man’s arm. They consist chiefly of a black sort of a stone, and were formerly employed, by the Indians, for pounding maize, which has, since times immemorial, been their chief and almost their only corn. They had neither wind-mills, water-mills, nor hand-mills, to grind it, and did not so much as know a mill, before the Europeans came into the country. I have spoken with old Frenchmen, in Canada, who told me, that the Indians had been astonished beyond expression, when the French set up the first wind-mill. They came in numbers, even from the most distant parts, to view this wonder, and were not tired with sitting near it for several days together, in order to observe it; they were long of opinion that it was not driven by the wind, but by the spirits who lived within it. They were partly [[41]]under the same astonishment when the first water-mill was built. They formerly pounded all their corn or maize in hollow trees, with the above-mentioned pestles, made of stone. Many Indians had only wooden pestles. The blackish stone, of which the hatchets and pestles are sometimes made, is very good for a grindstone, and therefore both the English and the Swedes employ the hatchets and pestles chiefly as grindstones, at present, when they can get them.
The old boilers or kettles of the Indians, were either made of clay, or of different kinds of pot-stone, (Lapis ollaris). The former consisted of a dark clay, mixt with grains of white sand or quartz, and burnt in the fire. Many of these kettles have two holes in the upper margin, on each side one, through which the Indians put a stick, and held the kettle over the fire, as long as it was to boil. Most of the kettles have no feet. It is remarkable that no pots of this kind have been found glazed, either on the outside or the inside. A few of the oldest Swedes could yet remember seeing the Indians boil their meat in these pots. They are very thin, and of different sizes; they are made sometimes of a greenish, and sometimes of a [[42]]grey pot-stone, and some are made of another species of apyrous stone; the bottom and the margin are frequently above an inch thick. The Indians, notwithstanding their being unacquainted with iron, steel, and other metals, have learnt to hollow out very ingeniously these pots or kettles of pot-stone.
The old tobacco-pipes of the Indians are likewise made of clay, or pot-stone, or serpentine-stone. The first sort are shaped like our tobacco-pipes, though much coarser and not so well made. The tube is thick and short, hardly an inch long, but sometimes as long as a finger; their colour comes nearest to that of our tobacco-pipes which have been long used. Their tobacco-pipes of pot-stone are made of the same stone as their kettles. Some of them are pretty well made, though they had neither iron nor steel. But besides these kinds of tobacco-pipes, we find another sort of pipes, which are made with great ingenuity, of a very fine, red pot-stone, or a kind of serpentine marble. They are very scarce, and seldom made use of by any other than the Indian Sachems, or elders. The fine red stone, of which these pipes are made, is likewise very scarce, and is found only in the country of those [[43]]Indians who are called Ingouez, and who, according to father Charlevoix, live on the other side of the river Missisippi[6]. The Indians themselves commonly value a pipe of this kind as much as a piece of silver of the same size, and sometimes they make it still dearer. Of the same kind of stone commonly consists their pipe of peace, which the French call calumet de paix, and which they make use of in their treaties of peace, and alliances. Most authors who have wrote of these nations mention this instrument, and I intend to speak of it when an opportunity offers.
The Indians employ hooks made of bone, or bird’s claws, instead of fishing-hooks. Some of the oldest Swedes here told me, that when they were young, a great number of Indians had been in this part of the country, which was then called New Sweden, and had caught fishes in the river Delaware, with these hooks.
They made fire by rubbing one end of a hard piece of wood continually against another dry one, till the wood began to smoke, and afterwards to burn.
Such were the tools of the antient Indians, and the use which they made of [[44]]them, before the Europeans invaded this country, and before they (the Indians) were acquainted with the advantages of iron. North America abounds in iron-mines, and the Indians lived all about the country before the arrival of the Europeans, so that several places can be shewn in this country, where at present there are iron-mines, and where, not a hundred years ago, stood great towns or villages of the Indians. It is therefore very remarkable that the Indians did not know how to make use of a metal or ore which was always under their eyes, and on which they could not avoid treading every day. They even lived upon the very spots where iron ores were afterwards found, and yet they often went many miles in order to get a wretched hatchet, knife, or the like, as above described. They were forced to employ several days in order to sharpen their tools, by rubbing them against a rock, or other stones, though the advantage was far from being equal to the labour. For they could never cut down a thick tree with their hatchets, and with difficulty they felled a small one. They could not hollow out a tree with their hatchets, or do a hundredth part of the work which we can perform with ease, by the help of our iron [[45]]hatchets. Thus we see how disadvantageous the ignorance and inconsiderate contempt of useful arts is. Happy is the country which knows their full value!
January the 5th. Christmas-day was celebrated this day by the Swedes and English, for they kept then to the old stile.