The Southern Workman Volume 32 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...famous whalers until recent years, and were much sought after by whaling captains during the palmy days of the business, before coaloil came into general use. It can be plainly seen from the collection that the manufactures of the Shinnecocks consisted of implements, utensils, and ornaments made of stone, bone, deer antlers, shells, and pottery. Tradition and common sense tell us that wood, skins, and matting were also used, although now destroyed by time. A few fragments of cloth, made of some coarse vegetable fiber and preserved by charring in the fire, were found about two feet below the present surface in an old ash-bed. These show that the textile art was not unknown. Stone arrow heads of the usual type, and arrow points made by cutting off the tip of a deer antler, sharpening the point and drilling out the base to receive the arrow shaft, suggest archery and the historical long-bow of the Eastern Indian. The stone points were found in all stages of manufacture, together with the hammer-stones used in the rough shaping and the bone implements for removing fine scales from the edges of the flint during the finishing process. Many arrow points must have been made here, for the ground in places is full of chips, flakes, and scales of quartz and flint--the refuse of the workshop. Pebbles, notched for the string, served as net sinkers; fish hooks were occasionally made of antler, as were harpoon points. Stone knives were also found, undoubtedly used in cutting meat and skins, and in cutting bone and wood by a sawing rather than a whittling motion. The whittling seems to have been clone with small stone scrapers which are John Thompson and his Thatched Storehouse very numerous in the collection. Bone partly and completely cut by the first process, and bone a...