. Bulletin. Ethnology. HOLSIES] ABORIGINAL AMEEICAN ANTIQUITIES PAET I 299 descriptions just Iioay the stone under treatment was held. Caleb Lyon some 70 j^ears airo witnessed the making of an obsidian arrow- head by fi skilled workman of the Shasta tribe of California. His reference to the work is as follows: Tlie Sluista Indian seated himself on the tloor, and, placing tlie stone anvil upon liis Ivnee, which was of compact talcose slate, with one blow of his agate chis(>l he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts; then giving another blow to the fractured side he split off a slab a
. Bulletin. Ethnology. HOLSIES] ABORIGINAL AMEEICAN ANTIQUITIES PAET I 299 descriptions just Iioay the stone under treatment was held. Caleb Lyon some 70 j^ears airo witnessed the making of an obsidian arrow- head by fi skilled workman of the Shasta tribe of California. His reference to the work is as follows: Tlie Sluista Indian seated himself on the tloor, and, placing tlie stone anvil upon liis Ivnee, which was of compact talcose slate, with one blow of his agate chis(>l he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts; then giving another blow to the fractured side he split off a slab a fourth of an inch in thickness. Holding; the piece against the anvil with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he conunenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually assumed the required slmpe. After finishing the base of the arrowhead (the whole being only a little over an inch in length), he began striking gentler blows, every one of which I expected would break it into pieces. Yet such was their adroit application, his skill and dexterity, that in little over an hour he produced a perfect. Fig. 162. Shaping a blade at rest by fracture with a hammerstone. obsidian arrowhead. I then requested him to carve me one from the remains of a broken port bottle, which (after two failures) he succeeded in doing. He gave as a reason for his ill success, he did not understand the grain of the glass. No sculptor ever 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 i)rofes- sion, which many attempt, but in which few attain excellence. He luiderstood the capacity of the material he wrought, and, before striking the first blow, by surveying the pebble, he could judge of its availability as well as the sculptor judges of the perfection of a block oi Parian.' Variants of this rest met
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectethnolo, bookyear1901
