1. Orange Bluff, Fla. (3/4)
2. Orange Bluff, Fla. (3/4)
3. Madison County, Ky. (3/4)
4. Barbadoes, W I (3/4)
In the national collection there are about twenty of these objects; six are from Tampa, Fla.; four of these are fragmentary; the remaining two are short and triangular, and have been made, one from a Busycon perversum, the other from a Busycon or Strombus. The cutting edge is wide and well sharpened. Two are from Cedar Keys, Fla., and are made from thin-walled specimens of the Busycon perversum. The larger is six and one-half inches in length by three in width toward the base; the other is about one-half as large. Both are rudely made, and show the effects of use. Five came from East Pass, Choctawhatchie Bay, Fla. Two of them are fragmentary; one of the entire specimens is very well made, and has a regularly beveled, oblique edge, while another is remarkable in having a curiously worn edge, which is deeply serrated by use or weathering. The majority of these specimens are from ancient shell heaps. Three are from St. Michael's Parish, Barbadoes, West Indies, one of which has already been described.
Professor Wyman, in the Naturalist for October, 1868, illustrates two of these celt-like implements from the fresh-water shell heaps near St. Johns, Fla. One is made from a triangular piece cut from a Busycon carica, so as to comprise a portion of the rostrum, which serves as a handle, and a portion of a swollen part of the body, which terminates in the cutting edge of the tool. The sides and apex are smoothed and rounded, while the base is regularly rounded and ground to an edge like that of a gouge, but with the bevel on the inside.
This author states that another specimen, obtained at Old Enterprise, shows clearly that it was detached from the shell by first cutting a groove and then breaking off the fragment. He also gives two views of a small shell celt which, from the exterior markings and the thick ridge on the inside, is thought to have been cut from the base of a Strombus gigas. "The broad end is ground to a blunt edge like that seen in most of the stone chisels from the other States, and the other is ground to a blunt point."
These implements are frequently mentioned by early explorers. In Plate 12 of the "Admiranda Narratio," an Indian is represented[38] with a shell implement, scraping away the charred portions from the interior of a canoe which is being hollowed out by fire. The same implement was employed for removing the bark from the tree trunks used.
Catlin, in speaking of the Klahoquat Indians of Vancouver's Island, says that "a species of mussel-shell of a large size, found in the various inlets where fresh and salt water meet, are sharpened at the edge and set in withes of tough wood, forming a sort of adze, which is used with one hand or both, according to its size; and the flying chips show the facility with which the excavation is made in the soft and yielding cedar, no doubt designed and made for infant man to work and ride in."[39]
Wood, speaking of the Indians of New England, says that "their Cannows be made either of Pine-trees, which before they were acquainted with English tooles, they burned hollow, scraping them smooth with Clam-shels and Oyster-shels, cutting their out-sides with stone-hatchets."[40]
The method of hafting these implements, when used for axes and adzes, was doubtless the same as that employed for stone implements of similar shapes. This is illustrated in Fig. 2, Plate XXVII, the handle being securely fastened by cords or sinews. It will be seen that but one of the specimens mentioned comes from the interior, and that from Madison County, Ky.
SCRAPERS.
The great majority of the scraping implements obtained from the mounds, graves, and shell heaps are simply valves of Unio or clam-shells, unaltered except by use; yet there is a widely distributed class of worked specimens, which have been altered by making a rough perforation near the center of the valve, and by the grinding down and notching of the edges. A very fine specimen is illustrated in Fig. 3, Plate XXVI. It is formed of the left valve of a Unio tuberculosus. It was taken from a mound at Madisonville, Ohio, and is now in the national collection. A similar specimen from the same locality is illustrated in an account of the exploration conducted by the Scientific and Literary Society of Madisonville.[41] I have seen four other fine specimens from the same locality; all are made of the shell of the Unio tuberculosus (?). It will be seen by reference to Fig. 3 that the posterior point of the shell is much worn, as if by use, while at the opposite end, near the hinge, the margin has been slightly notched. The large specimen, figured in the Madisonville pamphlet, as well as all other examples from this locality, are also much worn at the posterior end, and slightly notched on the anterior margin. The perforations are roughly made, and nearly one-half an inch in diameter.