“Colonel C. C. Jones also describes and figures the Jones spud, and adds: ‘We suppose this to have been an agricultural tool.’
“Gerard Fowke describes and figures a specimen fashioned of chloritic slate, from Prairie County, Arkansas. His remarks are intended to apply to both this and the perforated class of spuds. He says: ‘They are, usually, of a comparatively soft material, carefully worked and polished, and bear no marks of rough usage. On the other hand, they are too large for ornament. Perhaps their office may have been in some ceremony or game.’ He states that old residents of the Shenandoah Valley claimed that the last century Indians of that locality used implements of similar pattern for removing the bark from trees.
“General Gates P. Thruston figures three of these implements, including a very handsome specimen in his own collection which was found in the stone grave settlement near Nashville, Tennessee. He says of them: ‘As no other more practical use has been suggested as to them, we call them ceremonial spades or maces.’ He also describes two others, ‘one 15 3–4 inches long and the other a delicate little type 5 1–2 inches in length,’ and concludes his description with the following statement: ‘These implements are too dull for cutting purposes and must have been too valuable for use as ordinary agricultural or mechanical tools.’
“Mr. Clarence B. Moore figures several fine specimens in the magnificent reports of his explorations. One of these, 14 inches in length, is made of sassurite and was taken from the Shields mound in Duval County, Florida. Another of polished claystone and 11 inches in length was procured from Mt. Royal (mound) in Putnam County, Florida. The same author credits Thomas Wilson, Esq., for a report of two of these implements, one of blue trap rock, highly polished, found near Columbia, South Carolina, and the other from Kentucky.
“He quotes Dr. Joseph Jones, who says: ‘Several conjectures have been formed as to the use of these singular implements. Some have supposed them to have been used in agriculture, the flat head being employed as a spade and the round handle for making small holes in the earth for the deposit of Indian corn; others believe that they were used to strip bark from trees; others again, that they were used in dressing hides, in excavating caves, or in felling trees after the wood has been charred by fire. It is possible that they may have been used for all these purposes and also as warlike weapons, since it would be easy to cleave or fracture the human skull with a single blow from one of these stone implements.’
Fig. 371. (S. 1–3.) Two beautiful hoe- or spud-shaped objects from B. H. Young’s collection. The one to the left is made of greenstone, that to the right of cannel coal. Cumberland Valley, Kentucky.
“Mr. Moore concludes his remarks as follows: ‘Mr. Thruston reports a number of these implements from various parts of Tennessee, and rightly, we think, classes them as ceremonial. We consider them of too infrequent occurrence to suggest their employment for any practical use. We have been able to learn of none showing breakage or signs of use and some are too small in size to render them useful as weapons. Moreover the tally-marks on certain specimens connect them with the ceremonial class.’
“In closing this chapter the author desires to present the following conclusions and remarks which, though at variance with much that has been written concerning the purpose of this class of implements, are, he believes, worthy of consideration:—
