curved outwards and delicately serrated. In Newfoundland[1] a narrow, triangular form prevails, sometimes ground sharp at the base.
One of the ordinary types in North America,[2] viz., that with a notch at the base on either side, has already been mentioned more than once. This form shades off into that with a central dovetailed tang, sometimes with well-developed barbs. Others again have merely a central tang, with little or no attempt at barbs. The triangular form, usually but little excavated at the base, is also common. A rare form terminates in a semicircular edge. The leaf-shaped form is rare. For the most part the chipping is but rough, as the material, which is usually chert, horn-stone, or even quartz, does not readily lend itself to fine work. They were made of various sizes, the smaller for boys, and those for men varying in accordance with the purpose to which they were to be applied.[3] They have been so fully described by others that I need not dilate upon them. Some broken arrow-heads have been converted into scrapers.
As we proceed southwards in America, the forms appear more closely to resemble the European. Some of the obsidian and chalcedony arrow-heads from Mexico are stemmed and barbed, and almost identical in shape with English examples. Don Antonio de Salis[4] relates that in the Palace of Montezuma there was one place where they prepared the shafts for arrows and another where they worked the flint (obsidian) for the points. In Tierra del Fuego[5] the natives still fashion stemmed arrow-heads tanged and barbed, or of a triangular form, with a tang extending from the centre of the base. In Patagonia,[6] triangular, stemmed, and stemmed and barbed arrow-heads occur in deposits analogous to the Danish kjökken-möddings. One brought from Rio Grande, and presented to me by Lieut. Musters, R.N., has a broad stem somewhat hollowed at the base. Mr. Hudson,[7] in giving an account of arrow-heads from the valley of the Rio Negro, formed of agate, crystal, and flint of various colours, remarks that beauty must have been as much an aim to the worker as utility.
Some of the flint and chalcedony arrow-heads from Chili are beautifully made, and closely resemble those from Oregon, farther north. A tanged and barbed point, embedded in a human vertebra, was found in a burial mound near Copiapo.[8]
A tanged arrow-head from Araucania, with a well-marked shoulder at the base of the triangular head, so that it might almost be called barbed, is engraved by the Rev. Dr. Hume,[9] It is like an Italian form.
- ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. v. p. 241, pl. xi.
- ↑ Douglas, "Nænia Brit.," pl. xxxiii. 8. See Squier and Davis, "Anc. Mon. of Miss. Valley," p. 212. Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. i. pl. xvii., xviii.; vol. ii. pl. xxxix.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, op. cit., vol. i. p. 77. Catlin, "N. A. Ind.," vol. i. pl. xii. See also Nature, vol. vi. pp. 392, 413, 515; xi. pp. 90, 215. Gerard Fowke, "Stone Art," 13th Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethn. (1891-2), 1896. P. S. A. S., vol. xxiv. p. 396. Abbott's "Primitive Industry," (Salem, Mass., 1881).
- ↑ "Conquista de Mejico," bk. iii. chap. 14.
- ↑ Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed. p. 107. Douglas, "Nænia Brit.," pl. xxxiii. 9, 10.
- ↑ Strobel, "Mat. di Paletnologia comparata," Parma, 1868. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. iv. p. 311, pl. xxiii. Nadailhac, "l'Amér. préh." (1863), pp. 27, 57.
- ↑ "Idle Days in Patagonia," 1893, p. 39.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxxviii. p. 429.
- ↑ "Ill. of Brit. Ant. from objects found in South America, 1869," p. 89.
