An Indian could make a wooden shuttle in far less time than required to make one of stone, and if he dropped the wooden shuttle it would not break. If he dropped a winged stone and it struck any hard substance, it would be pretty apt to break or at least to be nicked.
Regarding the winged and other forms it is significant that no great number of these objects are found in the mounds, rather do they occur in the surface, pretty much anywhere in the Mississippi Valley and the St. Lawrence basin. In the great mounds of the Ohio Valley and also in the South, copper objects and pipes are common, the winged specimens in slate are very rare. My own opinion is that these things are older than the mounds. The gorgets with raised surfaces, such as Fig. 363, occur more frequently in the mounds of the Scioto Valley, than other types, excepting pendants, which are common everywhere. The same is true of the large squared or rectangular tablets; the double-winged stones are almost entirely wanting in the mounds and graves.
The beauty and symmetry of these specimens have always appealed to students of prehistoric art.
It is interesting to note—and one is persuaded that it has a direct bearing upon the usages to which the aborigines put these objects—that few of the forms are found accompanying the burials, and that these few are confined to the pendant shape, the tablet, and the “boat-shaped”—not hollowed-out. That is, that the “canoe-form” is so seldom found in interments as to be considered an exception, and that even when found it is not hollowed-out.
Fig. 364. (S. 1–2.) Slender bar-amulets. Collection of Albert L. Addis, Albion, Indiana. These three were found near Albion and are more slender than most bars.
Certain forms are common in stated localities. When one has time to list all of the “gorget” class now on exhibition in the museums, it will be possible to deduce further conclusions. Until then, what facts have already been ascertained must suffice.
Cushing thought that many of these slate and granite gorgets were bases on which bird-stones and similar effigies were mounted. Formerly I was inclined to accept Cushing’s views, but as careful study of the soft slate surfaces fails to reveal scratches, I am not now prepared to accept his suggestion. Rather let it be said that, if one is to theorize at all, the more complicated of these gorgets belong to the shamanistic individuals who were numerous in primitive tribes; that these, adorned with a variety of feathers and gewgaws, were brought before the lodge or into the central dance-ground and placed before the shaman, or that they were carried by him, or worn upon his person.
Fig. 365. (S. 1–2.) Bar-amulets; Phillips Academy collection, Andover. These range from base with slightly turned ends to long straight objects pointed at either end. They are of black slate, perforated in the bottom like a bird-stone.