page_title: Native American weaponry
section_title: Striking weapons
hierarchical_section_title: Native American weaponry / Striking weapons
caption_attribution_description: Tomahawk produced by the Hudson' Bay Company in the 1830s, listed on the FBI's database of stolen art: [1]
context_page_description: Native American weaponry was used by Native American warriors to hunt and to do battle with other Native American tribes and European colonizers.
  Native American weaponry can be grouped into five types of weapons: striking weapons, cutting weapons, piercing weapons, defensive weapons, and symbolic weapons.
context_section_description: Native Americans used many variations of striking weapons. These weapons were mainly used for melee combat with other tribes. In some cases these weapons were thrown for long-range attacks.
  Stone clubs were made from a stone attached to a wooden handle. There were also variations of stone clubs where tribes would carve the club out of a solid piece of stone. The most common stone types that were used for stone clubs were chert and flint. There are indications that most of these solid stone clubs were used for ceremonial purposes, instead of actual battle.
  Wooden clubs were commonly used by the woodland tribes. The clubs were carved from a solid piece of hardwood, like the wood from a mesquite, similarly to the stone clubs that were carved from a solid piece of stone. The earlier forms of wooden clubs were carved in the form of a ball at the end of a handle, but later forms were often sharpened, resembling a wooden sword. Some forms had a sharp stone shard driven into the end of the club, almost like an axe.
  The gunstock war club was mostly made from wood, but had a metal blade attached to the end of the club, like a spear point. The club was shaped like the stock of an 18th-century musket. The design of these gunstock clubs were directly influenced by the firearms that the European settlers used. Two popular theories for creating clubs in these shapes are that the Native Americans were impressed with how well the settlers used the ends of their firearms as striking weapons or they wanted to intimidate other tribes by giving the impression that they had firearms of their own.
  The war hatchet is very similar in design to a battle axe and was influenced by the axes that the European settlers used. The hatchet consisted of a sharpened blade, made from iron or stone, attached to the end of a handle.
  The pipe tomahawk was a type of war hatchet that was also a smoking pipe. Tomahawks were used for close combat like most striking weapons, but were also popular throwing weapons. The sharp edge was also used for skinning animals. With time, the pipe tomahawk became more ceremonial and was used more as a pipe than as a weapon.
caption: A pipe tomahawk dating to the early 19th century.
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