Digging Stick Handle
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1858
label: Collection Date
content: 1838 to 1842
name: label: Donor Name
content: United States Exploring Expedition
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "PERFORATED FOR A HANDLE."
label: Notes
content: Peale catalogue entry on artifact identifies it as: "Part of a deers horn [antler], used as a cross head to a stick for digging roots, by the Indian women in Oregon." Such digging stick handles are often made from elk antler. The handle would have been fitted with a sharpened wood stake and typically used by women to dig roots, clams, and other items. Note that this object is mentioned as being used in an exhibit in Berlin in 1880 on p. 148 of USNM Bulletin No. 18.
label: Notes
content: Speculatively, this may have been acquired by the expedition when it was in the Willamette valley of Oregon. Camas root digging sticks are mentioned on p. 234 of "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition," Charles Wilkes, 1845, Vol. V. If it is from that area, again speculatively, it may be from the Kalapuya.
label: Notes
content: Listed on page 47 in "The Exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915", in section "Arts of the Northwest Coast Tribes (Tools)".
label: Record Last Modified
content: 20 Oct 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Oregon Territory, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Northwest Coast Indian (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 66A00050
label: USNM Number
content: E2631-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Digging Stick Handle
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 19 cm