Part 12

It throws an interesting light on the industrial processes of the ancient flint-workers to learn that, even in a region where the useful chert abounded, they went far afield in search of other materials specially adapted for some classes of implements. They were unquestionably a settled community, in a higher stage than any of the tribes found in occupation of that or any neighbouring region when first visited by Europeans. But many tribes, both of the Northern and Southern States, habitually travelled far distances to the sea coast, where still the ancient shell mounds attest their presence. The routes thus annually pursued by the Indians of the interior of Pennsylvania, for example, were familiar to the early surveyors, and some of their trails undoubtedly marked the footprints of many generations. In traversing those routes, as well as in their autumnal encampments on the coast, opportunities were afforded of selecting suitable materials for their implements from localities remote from their homes. The lines of those old trails have accordingly yielded numerous examples of the wayfarers’ weapons and tools, as well as of unfinished implements. We are apt to think of a people in their Stone period as merely turning to account materials lying as accessible to all as the loose stones employed as missiles by the vagrant schoolboy. But such an idea is manifestly inapplicable, not only to the arts of communities like those by whom the earthworks of the Ohio valley were constructed, but to many far older workers in flint or stone. The Indian arrow-maker and the pipe-maker, it is manifest, often travelled great distances for the material best suited to their manufactures; and the use of flint or hornstone for slingstones, lance and arrow heads, as well as for knives, scrapers, axes, and other domestic and agricultural tools, must have involved a constant demand for fresh supplies. It might be assumed, therefore, apart from all direct evidence, that a regular system of quarrying for the raw material both of the pipe and the implement-maker was pursued; and that by trade or barter the pipestone of divers qualities, and the chert or hornstone, the quartzite, jasper, and other useful minerals, were thus furnished to tribes whose homesteads and hunting-grounds yielded no such needful supplies. But the same region which abounds in such remarkable evidences of the ingenious arts of a vanished race, also furnishes traces of the old miners, by whose industry the flint was quarried and roughly chipped into available forms for transport to distant localities, or for barter among the Mound-Builders in the region traversed by the great river. At various points on Flint Ridge, Ohio, and localities far beyond the limits of that state, as at Leavenworth, 300 miles south of Cincinnati, where the gray flint abounds, evidences of systematic quarrying illustrate the character and extent of this primitive commerce. Funnel-shaped pits occur, in many cases filled up with the accumulated vegetable mould of centuries, or only traceable by a slight depression in the surface of the ground. When cleared out, they extend to a depth of from four or five, to nearly twenty feet. On removing the mould, the sloping sides of the pit are found to be covered with pieces of fractured flint, intermingled with unfinished or broken implements, and with others partially reduced to shape. The largest hoes and spades hitherto noted appear to have been fashioned of quartzite, but those of most common occurrence in Ohio and Kentucky are made of the gray flint or chert, which abounds in the Flint Ridge pits in blocks amply sufficing for the manufacture of tools upwards of a foot in length, such as may be assumed to have been employed in the construction of the great earthworks. But the transportation of the unwrought blocks of hornstone to the work-yards in the valley would have involved great labour in the construction of roads, as well as of sledges or waggons suited to such traffic. In lieu of this, the accumulated waste chips in the quarries show the amount of labour that was expended there in order to facilitate the transport of the useful material. Suitable flakes and chips were no doubt also carried off to be turned to account for scrapers, knives, and other small implements. Partially shaped disks and other pieces of all sizes abound in the pits, but the finer manipulation, by means of which small arrow heads, lances, drills, scrapers, etc., were fashioned, was reserved for leisure hours at home, and for the patient labour of the skilled tool-maker, for whose use the raw material was chiefly quarried.

In the tool-bearing drift of France and England the large characteristic flint implements occur in beds of gravel and clay abounding in flakes and chips in every stage of accidental fracture, to some of which M. Boucher de Perthes assigned an artificial origin and very fanciful significance. But if the palæolithic flint-worker in any case quarried for his material before the latest geological reconstruction of the beds of rolled gravel, the fractured flints may include traces of primeval quarrying as well as of the tool-maker’s labours; for the rolled gravel beds occur in river-valleys best adapted to the habitat of post-glacial man.

In a report furnished to the Peabody Museum of Archæology, by Mr. Paul Schumacher, he contributes some interesting evidence relative to the stone-workers of Southern California. The Indians of the Pacific coast, south of San Francisco, not only furnished themselves with chisels, axes, and the like class of implements, but with pots for culinary purposes, made of steatite, usually of a greenish-gray colour. In 1876, Mr. Schumacher discovered various quarries of the old pot-manufacturers, with their tools and unfinished articles lying there. The softer stone had been used for pots, while the close-grained darker serpentine was chiefly employed in making the weights for digging sticks, cups, pipes, and ornaments. “I was struck,” he says, “on examining the locality through a field-glass, by the discovery of so many silver-hued mounds, the debris of pits, the rock quarries and open-air workshops, so that I believed I had found the main factory of the ollas of the California aborigines.”[28] He also discovered the slate quarry, where the rock had been broken off in irregular blocks, from which pieces best adapted for chisels were selected and fashioned into the forms specially useful in making the steatite pots. A venerable Spanish lady told Mr. Schumacher that she recollected her mother telling her how the Indians had brought _ollas_ in canoe-loads from the islands in Santa Barbara Channel to the mainland, and there exchanged them for such necessities as the islanders were in need of. This tradition was subsequently confirmed by an old Mexican guide. Similar evidence of systematic industry with the accompanying trade, or barter, meets the explorer at many points from the Gulf of Mexico northward to beyond the Canadian lakes. The pyrulæ from the Mexican Gulf are of frequent occurrence in northern ossuaries and grave mounds, while corresponding southern sepulchral deposits disclose the catlinite of the Couteau des Prairies and the native copper of the Lake Superior mines. Obsidian is another prized material only to be found _in situ_ in volcanic regions, but met with in manufactured forms in many diverse regions, remote from the obsidian quarries.

The routes of ancient traffic, determined in part by the geographical contour of the regions through which they pass, are familiar to the historical students in the Old World. The ancient lines traversed by the traders between the Persian Gulf and the Levant; the routes of caravans by way of the oases, across the centre of the Arabian peninsula to the Red Sea; the lines of access by road and river from the Baltic to the Danube; and from the British Isles and the North Sea, by the valley of the Rhone, to the Mediterranean: are all indicated by a variety of evidence. The geography of Central Africa appears to have been familiar to the Arabian traders from remote ages. Similar well-trodden routes, and traverses by lake and river, are well known to the investigators of American antiquity. The great trail across Pennsylvania to the Mississippi; the route by the great lakes and by portage to the Hudson valley, and so to the Atlantic; from Lake Ontario, by the Humber and Lake Simcoe, to the Georgian Bay; from Lake Superior, by the Mitchipicotten river, to the Hudson Bay; and by the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico: are all demonstrated by abundant traces of the interchange of the products of widely severed regions, as disclosed in ancient burial mounds, and deposits assignable to remote periods and to long-extinct races. West of the Rocky Mountains the trails from the Pacific coast to the interior, and through the passes of that lofty range, have been recovered. Owing to the bold contours of the region, in the abrupt descent from the western slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, the routes of travel are more strictly defined by the physical geography of the country than in the long stretches of the continent to the east of that mountain range. An interchange of commodities between the tribes of the coast and the interior appears to have been carried on from remote times. Dr. Dawson’s own personal observations in British Columbia have satisfied him that trading intercourse was prosecuted by the coast tribes with those of the interior, along the Fraser River Valley; Bella Coola Valley, from head of Benetinck Arm; Skeena River; Stiking River; and Chilkoot Pass, from the head of Lynn Canal. By the second of the above routes oolacten oil was carried far into the interior; and the old trail leading from Bella Coola and Fraser river is chiefly associated by the inland Indians with this traffic. The habitual traffic engendered by the local advantages of some of the tribes on the northern Pacific coast has manifestly developed some peculiarities which distinguish them from other Indians of the northern continent. The Bilqula, a people inhabiting a limited tract in the vicinity of Dean Inlet and Benetinck Arms, by reason of their geographical position have held command of the most important natural pass and trade route from the ocean to the interior between the Skeena and the Fraser rivers, a distance of upwards of 400 miles. From remotest times embraced in the native traditions a route has been traversed by way of the Bella Coola river, thence northward to the Salmon river, and then along the north side of the Blackwater river to the Upper Fraser. Dentalium shells and other prized objects of barter were carried over this route; but the article of chief value brought from the coast was the oil of the Oolacten or Candle Fish; and hence this thoroughfare is commonly known among the Tinné of the interior as the “Grease Trail.”

Along this and other long-frequented trails the broken implements, flint and obsidian chips, and other traces of the natives by whom they have been traversed, not only afford proof of their presence there, but at times disclose indications of the regions they have visited in going to or returning from the interior. Dr. G. M. Dawson informs me that, while travelling along various Indian trails and routes in British Columbia, west of Fraser river, and between lats. 52° and 54°, chips and flakes of obsidian were not unfrequently observed. The Tinné Indians stated that the material was obtained from a mountain near the headwaters of the Salmon river (about long. 125° 40′, lat. 52° 40′), which was formerly resorted to for the purpose of procuring this prized material. The Indian name of this mountain is _Bece_, and Dr. Dawson further notes the suggestive fact that this word is the same with the Mexican (Aztec?) name for “knife.” Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey, also noted, in 1883, the finding of a flake of obsidian in connection with a layer of buffalo-bones, occurring in alluvium, and evidently of considerable antiquity, near Fort M’Leod, Alberta. The nearest source of such a material is the Yellowstone Park region. Those regions, it is obvious, were visited by native explorers, not merely to supply their own wants, but for the purpose of securing coveted objects available for trade or barter. Dr. Dawson reports to me as the result of observations founded on repeated visits to the region, in the work of the Geological Survey: That all the coast tribes of British Columbia are born traders, and possess in a high degree the mental characteristics generally attributed to the Jews. Those holding possession of the above routes regarded trade with the neighbouring inland tribes as a valuable monopoly, and were ready to fight for it. They also traded among themselves, and certain localities were well known as the source of commodities. Thus the Haida Indians regularly purchased oolacten oil from the Tshimsians, who caught the oolacten at the mouth of the Nass and Stiking rivers, giving in exchange cedar canoes, for the manufacture of which they were celebrated. Through the agency of the Tshimsians they also procured from the inland Indians the large mountain sheep horns, from which they executed elaborately carved spoons and other implements. Cumshewa, in Queen Charlotte Islands, was, again, noted for Indian tobacco, an undetermined native plant, which was an article of trade all along the coast.

Copper was not unknown to the native tribes on the Pacific coast, and rich supplies of the native metal appear to have been partially worked, by the tribes along the shores of Lake Superior from a remote date. The ancient mines have been disclosed, in the process of turning their resources to account by the enterprise of civilised settlers; and abundant evidence has been recovered to show that the native copper of the Keweenaw peninsula, Ontonagon, Isle Royale, and other points on Lake Superior, was worked extensively by its ancient miners, and undoubtedly formed a valuable object of traffic throughout the region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, and along the whole eastern routes to the seaboard. But, with the imperfect resources of the native miners, it was a costly rarity, procurable only in small quantities by barter with the tribes settled on the shores of Lake Superior. Axe blades, spear heads, knives, gorgets, armlets, tubes and beads, all fashioned out of the native copper solely with the hammer, have been recovered from ancient grave mounds and ossuaries in the valleys of the St Lawrence, the Hudson, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and their tributaries; and to the west of the Rocky Mountains, copper implements again occur manufactured from metal derived from some native source on the Pacific slope. The copper was, no doubt, recognised as a malleable rock, differing from all others in its ductility, so that it could be fashioned, with the aid of a hammer-stone, to any desired form. By this means the ancient miners of Lake Superior provided themselves with the most suitable tools for their mining operations, and were probably the manufacturers of most of the widely diffused copper implements. But for general purposes, both of industry and war, American man had to be content with the more abundant chert, hornstone, and quartzite.

The source from whence the tribes on the Pacific obtained the coveted metal has not yet been ascertained; but it was obviously procured only in small quantities, insufficient to be turned to account for economic uses. Among a curious collection of objects illustrative of the arts of the Haida Indians, now in the Museum of the Geological Survey at Ottawa, is a large copper ring, or torque, which appears to have been handed down for successive generations, from chief to chief, as a prized heirloom; and, it may be assumed, as a symbol of official rank. The ring, or necklet, is composed of three twisted bars, or strands of hammered copper, each tapering at both ends, and is fashioned with remarkable skill, if due allowance be made for the imperfect tools of the native artificer. This unique relic seems to show the accumulated metallic wealth of the tribe fashioned into a symbol of official rank; not improbably with mysterious virtues ascribed to it, which passed with it to its official custodian. A block of native copper now in the National Museum at Washington is described by the Père Charlevoix as a sacred object of veneration by the Indians of Lake Superior, on which a young maiden had been offered in sacrifice.[29] But it is beyond question that throughout the region north of the Mexican Gulf the native manufacturer resorted mainly to the abundant hornstone, chert, quartzite, and the like materials of the Stone period. These were in universal demand, and must have been industriously collected in the localities where they abound, and disposed of by a regular system of exchange for furs, wampum, or other objects of barter. Mr W. H. Dall, in his report on _The Tribes of the Extreme North-West_, notes the absence in the Aleutian Islands of any stone, such as serpentine, fit for making the celts or adzes, recovered by him from the shell mounds. “They were,” he says, “probably imported from the continental Innuit at great cost, and very highly valued”; and on a subsequent page he adds: “The intertribal traffic I have referred to is universal among the Innuit.”[30]

The occurrence of well-stored caches in some of the ancient mounds of the Ohio valley, as well as their repeated discovery in other localities, accords with the idea of systematised industrial labour, and the storing away of the needful supplies for agricultural and domestic operations, and for war. Messrs. Squier and Davis, in their _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, describe one of the mounds opened by them within the great earthwork on the North Fork of Point Creek, in which, according to their estimate, about four thousand hornstone disks were disposed in regular order, in successive rows overlapping each other. In 1864, I had an opportunity of examining some specimens retained in the possession of Dr. Davis. They were mostly disks measuring about six inches long and four wide, more or less oval, or broad spear-shaped, and fashioned out of a fine gray flint with considerable uniformity of character. Mr. Squier assumed that the deposit was a religious offering; but subsequent disclosures of a like character confirm the probability that it was a hoard of material stored for the tool-maker.[31]

In other, though rarer cases, the cache has been found containing finished implements. In digging a cellar at Trenton, New Jersey, a deposit of one hundred and twenty finished stone axes was brought to light, at a depth of about three feet below the surface. Another discovery of a like character was made when digging for the construction of a receiving vault of the Riverview Cemetery, near Taunton; and similar deposits are recorded as repeatedly occurring in the same state.[32] In two instances all the specimens were grooved axes. In another, fifty porphyry celts were found deposited in systematic order. Mr. Charles Rau has given the subject special attention, and in a paper entitled “Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America,” he furnishes evidence of addiction to certain manufactures, such as arrow heads, hoes and other digging tools, spear heads, chisels, etc., by skilled native craftsmen.[33] Deposits closely corresponding to the one reported by Mr. Squier as the sole contents of one of the mounds, in “Clark’s Work,” Ohio, have been subsequently discovered in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. One of the Illinois deposits contained about fifteen hundred leaf-shaped or rounded disks of flint arranged in five horizontal layers. Another, said to have contained three thousand five hundred specimens, was discovered at Fredericksburg, in the same state. A smaller, but more interesting hoard was accidentally brought to light in 1868, when some labourers in opening up a new street, at East St. Louis, in the same State of Illinois, came upon a collection of large flint tools all of the hoe and shovel type. There were about fifty of the former and twenty of the latter, made of a yellowish-brown flint, and betraying no traces of their having been used. Near by them lay several large unworked blocks of flint and greenstone, and many chippings and fragments of flint.[34] Deposits of a like character, but varying both in the number and diversity of their contents, and, in general, showing no traces of use, have been discovered in other states to the east of the Mississippi. In the _Smithsonian Report_ for 1877, Mr Rau prints a curious account of “The Stock in Trade of an Aboriginal Lapidary.” In the spring of the previous year Mr. Keenan presented to the National Museum at Washington a collection of jasper ornaments, mostly unfinished, which had been found in Lawrence County, Mississippi. They were brought to light in ploughing a cotton field, where a deposit was exposed, lying about two and a half feet below the natural surface. It included four hundred and sixty-nine objects, of which twenty-two were unwrought jasper pebbles; one hundred and one were beads of an elongated cylindrical shape, and a few of them partially perforated. Others were ornaments of various forms, including two animal-shaped objects. The whole were made of jasper of a red or reddish colour, occasionally variegated with spots or streaks of pale yellow, but nearly all were in an unfinished state, and so fully bore out the idea of their being the stock in trade of some old native workman, who finished them in sufficient numbers to meet the demands of his customers.[35]

From time to time fresh disclosures prove the extent to which such systematic industry was carried on. The various collections thus brought to light were unquestionably the result of prolonged labour, and were, for the most part, undoubtedly stored for purposes of trade. In some cases they may have been accumulated in the arsenal of the tribe in readiness for war. But whether we recognise in such discoveries the store of the trader, or the military arsenal, they indicate ideas of provident foresight altogether distinct from the desultory labours of the Indian savage in the preparation of his own indispensable supply of implements for the chase or for war.