The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1904-01-20
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grind away the marks of the hammer
with piece of gritty sandstone. Or
namcnts and pipes were usually fash
Toned entirely by rubbing, and it is
easy to imagine what tedious task
this must have been.
When he wanted to drill hole. as In
pipe or ornament. he used smooth.
straight stick or piece of bone, and
revolved it by simply holding 1t be.
tween his hands and rubbing them
back and forth. Il slight depression be-
ing peckcd where the perforation was
TO begin. in order to hold the drill in
place. DIR. Rau determined TO find out
just how long it would take to drill
such n hole. He worked ut one hole
for two years, and then left it incom.
plete. OF course. the aborigincs were
doubtless more skllful at such work
than DR.. Rau and could complete a
hole in much less time. yet the process
must have been sufficiently tedious.
Frequently, in opening a mound, great
quantities of little beads are found.
all nicely perforated. Each of them
represents weeks of work, for the per-
forations We're made by rolling stem
of grass along the thigh with the right
hand, and holding the bead against the
point of the drill with the left.
Mr. Fowke shows that this infinite
patience still exists among savages,
citing the case of the tribes of the
Amazon. which make beautiful tubes
OF rock crystal an inch in diameter
and sometimes eight inches long, by
rubbing down the outside with pieces
of stone and then drilling them from
end to end with the flexible shoot of
the wild plaintan. To finish the larger
ones requires the lifetime OF two men;
that is man works all his life at It,
and leaves the unfinished ornament to
youth, who sometimes dies of old age
before he gets it completed.
| Such unwearying patience as this
seems almost incredible, yet the imple-
ments of the aborigines of this region,
scattered as they are in such numbers,
were fashioned in this very way. The
method still survives and flint is
worked to-day by certain savages just
as IL was thousands of years ago. The
Indians of Mexico. Peru and California
strike Off flakes with stone hammers
or with little wedges of bone. Some
| times the chips are faxed Off by pres
sure: but in every instance the nipple
ments were shaped bit by bit and with
infinite patience.
And how effective were the nipple
ments thus manufactured? Mr.. Fowke
points out how difficult 1t is to convince
| people that an indian or anybody else
could have cut with or made any prac-
| teal use of the rude tools made of
stone by such primitive processes. Yet,
the aborigines could do many things
with stone which seem almost marvel
lous-eve to shaving. The man who
fumes and frets nowadays when his
razor is little dull will hear with
incrcdulity that any one could shave
with shell or sharpened stone. Not
that shaving was common, for the pre-
vailing fashion was to use small
mussel shell as n.ppers and jerk each
hair out by the root-a lasting process,
however painful.
| The great mystery about nipple
ments made by the mound builders is
that, despite the tedious labor 1t took
TO fashion them. the" should be made
in such quantities and should seeming
ly he handled so carelcssly, instead Of
being treasured. as one would natur-
ally expect them to be. Every mound
yields up hundreds and hundreds of
specimens; every field. every meadow,
| every bit of woodland Is rich with
them: every farmhouse for miles
around here has its collection. AS one
thinks OF all these, one gets n vision
of great people working patiently
year after year fashloning these nipple
ments ami trinkets, but why they
should have cared to do so is mys-
terry seemingly beyond solution. Be
side It, the labor of throwing up the
great mounds which dot this valley
seems almost signifcant.-New York
| Tribune.