Fig. 546. (S. 2–3.) Beads, arrow-points, and bone fish-hooks, from the Mandan Village-Site, North Dakota.
The slender bones of turkeys and geese were often made into whistles, the medicine-men used them, and bone tubes were frequently employed by shamans in drawing the evil spirit from the bodies of the sick. Small digits were worked into necklaces. Special bones of certain animals, it is supposed, were the property of the medicine-men and were used in their incantations. The skull of the buffalo played an important part in the mythology except among Plains tribes. I shall not treat of that phase of the subject in this volume, but refer readers to the list of titles in the Bibliography, under Buffalo; which will be found to contain full descriptions of the ceremonies connected with the buffalo. In another part of this work (Volume I, pages 208–09) I refer to the importance of the buffalo to Indians through an extent of territory fifteen hundred by one thousand miles.
Fig. 547. (S. 2–3.) Stages of fish-hook manufacture. Gartner Mound, Ohio.
Fig. 548. (S. 1–1.) Typical fish-hooks found in the Baum Village-Site, Ohio.
Fig. 549. (S. about 1–3.) Andover collection. The long bones of large animals were cut or sawed into proper lengths, the openings in the ends enlarged and flint knives inserted. This figure presents eight such tool-handles. The two at the top were found in a gravel-pit in central Ohio, together with human skeletons. Flint knives lay at the end of each of these two bones. The decayed bone shown in the lower part of the picture was also found in a gravel burial and a slender flint knife rested against it. The position of the knives and the bones leaves me to conclude that these bones were knife-handles.
Fig. 550. (S. 1–3.) Bone tool-handles from the villages along the Upper Missouri River. Andover collection.