Sir Edward Belcher some years ago kindly explained the process to me, and showed me both the implements used, and the objects manufactured. It appears that the flake from which the arrow-head is to be made is sometimes fixed by means of a cord in a split piece of wood so as to hold it firmly, and that all the large surface flaking is produced either by blows direct from the hammer, or through an intermediate punch or set formed of reindeer horn. The arrow- or harpoon-head thus roughly chipped out is afterwards finished by means of the "arrow-flaker."
The process in use at the present day among the Indians of Mexico in making their arrows is described in a somewhat different manner by Signor Craveri, who lived sixteen years in Mexico, and who gave the account to Mr. C. H. Chambers.[1] He relates that when the Indians wish to make an arrow-head or other instrument of a piece of obsidian, they take the piece in the left hand, and hold grasped in the other a small goat's horn; they set the piece of stone upon the horn, and dexterously pressing it against the point of it, while they give the horn a gentle movement from right to left, and up and down, they disengage from it frequent chips, and in this way obtain the desired form. M. F. de Pourtalès[2] speaks of a small notch in the end of the bone into which the edge of the flake is inserted, and a chip broken off from it by a sideways blow. Mr. T. R. Peale[3] describes the manufacture of arrow-heads among the Shasta and North California Indians, as being effected by means of a notched horn, as a glazier chips glass. This has also been fully described and illustrated by Mr. Paul Schumacher[4] of San Francisco. Major Powell confirms this account.
The Cloud River Indians[5] and the Fuegians,[6] also fashion their arrow-heads by pressure. Mr. Cushing[7] has described the process and claims to be the first civilized man who flaked an arrow-head with horn tools. This was in 1875. I had already done so and had described the method at the Norwich Congress in 1868. The late Mr. Christy,[8] in a paper on the Cave-dwellers of
- ↑ Gastaldi's "Lake Habitations of Northern and Central Italy," translated and edited by C. H. Chambers, M.A. (Anth. Soc., 1865), p. 106.
- ↑ Mortillet, Mat. pour l'Hist. de l'Homme, vol. ii. p. 517.
- ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 78.
- ↑ Arch. f. Anth., vol. vii. p. 263. Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, vol. iii. p. 547.
- ↑ Nat., vol. xxi, p. 615.
- ↑ Nat., vol. xxii. p. 97.
- ↑ Amer. Anthrop., 1895, p. 307. Nat., vol. xx. p. 483.
- ↑ Trans. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., vol. iii. p. 365. "Rel. Aquit.," p. 17.
