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• -..' -• -- ■•-.--- ..s ••/.. J•••,'' •. . ’ •• •* • - ' -. . • ‘ 1 ».•.'•• • ■ • . , ■Bow Indian 4y*rovliead6 are iffadc.Prom, Kelly *« Wcetly.;There are probably few if any of oar reader* who have not at- some time seen •and admired, the heads of Indian arrows, spears, juvelms, etc., found in almost every ; part of i ilia continent, and who has not often wondered how they could be so .delicately and truly formed by a : people who were strangers to thfi use of iron. Similar articles are also found in the various parts of the European . continent. The Hon. Caleb Lyon, before his return trip to' the ea*t from thiB coast, casually met with a party of Shasta ilndiansj who still used these points, although with most. of the tribes of this dajr they have been succeeded cither with fire arms or iron-pointedweapoLB.'f^ ji^oag- jthe alsofound one Indian-who oould make them, and induced him to go through with the, various ^tages of manufacture, which’ be did, and which Mr. ]L. , subsequently. described to the American Ethnological society, as follows: vThe Shasta Indian seated himself upon jthe floor; and laying the stone anvil upon his knee, with . one blow of his agate ohisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts; then,giv-, iog another blow to the fractured side/ he split off a slab some.,fourth, of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil, with the thumb and; finger of the left-hand,'he commenced a seried of - continuous blows, every one of which clipped off fragments of the brittle. substance. it grudoaljy assumed the required shape.After finishing the base of .the, arrowhead {the whole being only a little over an inch in length,) he began striking gentlerblows, everyone of which I expected wculd break it into pieces. ■ Yet such was their application, his skill and dexterity, that in little more than an hour he produced a perfect obsidian arrowhead. X then requested him to carve me one from the remains of a broken porter bottle, which, after two failures, he succeeded in doing. He gave me for a reaspn for his ill-euocess that he did not understand the nature-of the glass. N o sculptor handled a chisel with greater precision,, or more carefully measured the weight and effect of every blow, than this ingenious Indian, for even among them arrow making is a distinct trade or profession, which many attempt, but in. whi ch few attain excellence, lie understood the capacity of the material he wrought,and before striking, the first blow, by surveying the pebble, he could judge of its availability, as the sculptor judges of the perfection of a block of Parian. ■/
Newspaper Details
Daily Milwaukee News
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US
Wed, Feb 12, 1868
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Badgerlink
WI, USA 06 Oct 2017
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