It is supposed, and is even asserted, that the Indian knew nothing of forks; but that he plunged his fingers into the boiling pot or held in his bare hands the steaming joints of bear or venison is quite improbable. Now, the archæologist talks glibly of bone awls whenever a sharpened splinter of bone is presented him, as if such instruments were only intended to perforate leather. They doubtless had other uses, and I am sure that more than one split and sharpened bone which has been found would have served excellently well as a one-tined fork wherewith to lift from the pot a bit of meat. Whether or not such forks were in use, there were wooden spoons, as a bit of the bowl and a mere splinter of the handle serve to show. Kalm tells us that they used the laurel for making this utensil, but I fancied my fragment was hickory. Potsherds everywhere spoke of the Indians’ feasting, and it is now known that, besides bowls and shallow dishes of ordinary sizes, they also had vessels of several gallons’ capacity. All these are broken now, but, happily, fragments of the same dish are often found together, and so we can reconstruct them. But what did the Indians eat? Quaint old Gabriel Thomas, writing about 1696, tells us that “they live chiefly on _Maze_ or _Indian Corn_ rosted in the Ashes, sometimes beaten boyl’d with Water, called _Homine_. They have cakes, not unpleasant; also Beans and Pease, which nourish much, but the Woods and Rivers afford them their provision; they eat morning and evening, their Seats and Tables on the ground.”