Fig. 196. (S. 2–3.) This cut shows seven drills representing the types in our classification from all parts of the country. They are with stem, without stem, stem expanding gradually, stem expanding suddenly, notches in the side, base straight, concave, and convex. Phillips Academy collection.
Fig. 197. (S. 1–1.) Three peculiar obsidian reamers with long stems and short points. Collection of F. M. Gilham, Highland Springs, California. The figure at the bottom is a pointed obsidian knife.
More skill, time, and care were required in the manufacture of these more beautiful, delicate “drills,” than in the making of common perforators. Again, the ancient Indians were saving and never extravagant. It is to be thought that they would scarcely be so foolish as to employ in a hazardous operation the finest implements in their possession. Yet, if an Indian found it necessary to employ his finest and most precious object in a ceremony or for the purpose of appeasing the gods, or as a gift to the dead, he would not hesitate to do so. He placed all such desires and thoughts first. This is characteristic of Indian nature.
Witness Professor Holmes’s discovery of remarkable flint implements in a spring near Afton, Indian Territory. His contention is that these were gift offerings.[[4]]
Fig. 198. (S. 1–1.) Five jasper and obsidian reamers or small drills. Collection of C. F. Case, Sams Valley, Oregon.
We seldom find axes, pestles, spades, and grooved stone hammers in mounds or graves. I never knew of more than two instances in the whole United States where pestles were buried in ancient graves, and I never knew of a single find of pitted hammer-stones in a prehistoric mound or grave. This does not mean that the Indian regarded labor as beneath him. It means that he drew a special line of demarcation between those ideals which concerned his “mystery,” and the affairs of everyday life. His religion, or as unthinking people have called it, his superstition, he placed first.
He worshiped the Unknown in the air and sky above. Naturally, he showed respect to the dead, and perhaps not so much to the person of the dead as to that estate into which the deceased entered. Truly, one might say that “nothing unclean or common” was placed by him with the dead, or offered as a sacrifice to the spirits. For this very reason I maintain that while the Indian would spend hours of rigorous laborious work upon bringing to perfection certain art forms or weapons, he would not employ these in the manufacture of commoner implements, ornaments, or other forms. But on the contrary, prompted by his high regard for stone objects of the character of these long and slender flint ornaments, he made use of more serviceable and common things as tools. Therefore, it was natural for him to select a reed, or a stout hickory stick, or a heavy flint drill instead of an object that will chip or break in the course of five or ten minutes drilling.
There is yet another use to which I believe some of the finest perforators was put, which I state as my opinion merely.