The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America -- Antiquities; Stone age -- North America
This fact is illustrated in specimen number 38,205, from our Andover
exhibit, shown in Fig. 352, which has a remarkable and interesting
history. It was found in Indiana on the banks of the Wabash River, on
the site of a Miami Indian village. The Miamis lived on that site about
seventy years ago, and the specimen was found shortly after they
departed for their reservation west of the Mississippi. As will be seen,
the object is an unfinished ceremonial, or possibly an ornament.
Material, banded slate. The maker had done little more than block it out
roughly. The specimen is clearly prehistoric and is covered with patina.
It has every appearance of age. It was picked up from its ancient site
by some Miami Indian who was in search of a suitable instrument for
tapping sugar-trees. As the specimen was of the right weight, and shaped
something like a hammer-head, he lashed it in a stick and used it as an
instrument with which to drive pegs or chips into the sugar-maples. The
original handle has been preserved, although it is now frail and much
decayed.
[Illustration:
FIG. 346. (S. 1–3.) Four winged objects and one pick-shaped from the
collection of A. L. Addis, Albion, Indiana. Attention is called to
the central object, a crescent with the broad ends. This type is
interesting, and different from others. Several have been found, but
no one can explain the purpose of these peculiar projections on the
tips of the wings.
]
Moreover, the specimen carries a moral. We cannot explain the purpose of
the “ceremonial” or unknown or “problematical” class through information
or data obtained from modern Indians, and so far as prehistoric times
are concerned, modern folk-lore sheds little light on them. In this case
the Indian made use of an unfinished ceremonial as a rude hand-hammer.
No glimmer of what that specimen stood for in the mind of prehistoric
man entered his head. He saw a convenient tool and he made use of it
accordingly. How long ago that ceremonial was manufactured, it is
impossible to determine. One fact stands forth indisputably, and that is
that the modern Miami had not the faintest conception of the original or
true import of the object he used as a hammer.
[Illustration:
FIG. 347. (S. 1–1.) Very highly polished slate winged object.
Collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was
originally of butterfly form, such as is shown at the top in Fig.
350, and my theory is that it was broken and the wings ground down
until this form resulted.
]
[Illustration:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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