The fact that so few of these are found in burial-places leads me to believe that the problematical class was made and used largely in times previous to the interment of bodies in mounds, graves, or cliff-houses. That is, they were all very old and did not belong to mound-building tribes or to those who were buried in graves. Of course, some of them did, but I am speaking of the average, for a small per cent of them were found in burial-places. Professor Edward H. Williams, Jr., of Woodstock, Vermont, examined with great care for me the surfaces of a number of these problematical forms, testing them from a point of view of chemistry and mineralogy, to ascertain what elements in the stones weathered out and what elements remained. In the Conclusions, Volume II, I present his observations, referring to them by our museum numbers, instead of by the figure numbers used in “The Stone Age.” His observations are of great importance in indicating that many of these stones are old. How old, I do not attempt to say in years, but that the most of them were made and used long before the Christian era, I firmly believe.
Fig. 366. (S. 1–3.) Bar-amulet and four ridged objects, somewhat different from bar-amulets, but of such forms as could be ranged in a series, beginning with bar-amulet and ending in a ridged type, or vice versa.
There is another point with reference to the problematical class that I wish to place before readers. If there is anything that denotes peculiar development here in America on the part of stone-age man—a development dissimilar to that found anywhere else in the world, it is evinced in these strange, problematical forms. Here and there one will find a stone pendant or simple ornament similar to stone pendants elsewhere in the world. But as a class these things stand aloof as distinctly American. Compare them with stone objects from any other country in the world, and you will catch my meaning. They are unique, they are individualistic. I defy any one to pick a series in Egypt, Europe, Babylonia, or elsewhere that will type for type compare with them. They constitute a problem in American archæology. We have seen that on the forearm or chest, or the hand, or the neck, of skeleton remains some of these are found. But most of the forms have not been found buried with the dead. The few vague references to “charm-stones,” and “bull-roarers” are feeble attempts at explanation. Certainly, we do not know, in the broad sense, what they meant to stone-age man. To dismiss them with a wave of the hand as witchcraft stones is likewise a confession to ignorance and of inability to solve the problem. I find no specific reference among the works of early writers to their use. Their distribution is not confined to the territory of the Iroquois, the Creeks, the Delawares, the Eries, or the Ojibwa. While they are most numerous in the areas occupied by such tribes, that does not mean that they were used by those same Indians.
Fig. 368. (S. 1–2.) Two of a series of peculiar pointed type regarding which I am totally in the dark. Material: black slate and granite. Phillips Academy collection, Andover. The one to the right has a groove about the top. There are many of these in all museum collections, and I am sorry I cannot illustrate a large number of them. They range from the ordinary ridged form, unperforated, to long, slender, almost pick-shaped objects. They constitute a study in themselves. There have been many theories as to drilled and winged objects, but these pendant-shaped, “coffin”-shaped, and kindred stones not only defy classification, but there is absolutely no use to be assigned them. There are no perforations, seldom are they grooved, and there is no way whereby one might judge for what purpose they were made use of. Truly the word “problematical” belongs to them more than to any other type of stone objects.
Fig. 367. (S. 1–2.) Peculiar bar-amulet, of which three views are represented; top, side, and bottom. John Merkel collection, Bellevue, Iowa. Material: mottled granite.
I closed my part of the Bulletin no. 2, on gorgets, Phillips Academy publication, with the same quotations with which I close this chapter on “Problematical Forms.” I see no reason to change it, although it applied to gorgets exclusively:—
“If one were to find Zuñi paraphernalia independent of any association of Zuñi people, and if the discoverer had no knowledge of the Zuñis, he could not conceive of the peculiar, not to say incredible, usages to which Zuñi charms are put. The Zuñis gave up most of their time to ceremonies. Other native tribes may have done the same.