Champlain, however, that the axe sometimes did the whole work, and did it much more expeditiously than would seem likely to a modern lumberman. Champlain says that the Mohawks in 1609, upon meeting his party, "began to hew down trees with villanous axes which they sometimes got in war, and others of stone, and fortified themselves very securely."

Besides such implements of general usefulness as the axe and the knife, the Iroquois manufactured others especially intended to increase the products of hunting, fishing, and agriculture. The implement most important to the hunter was his bow and arrow. The bow was made of red cedar or some similar wood, hardened by fire and scraped into shape with a shell knife.1 It was not the short bow, so efficient in the hands of the mounted hunter; on the contrary, it often equalled the height of a man.2 A weapon of this kind could be used only by a man of strength and experience. In such hands it could send an arrow with fearful force. The bow string consisted of a hempen cord or a deer sinew. If the latter, it was prepared by being drawn back and forth in a groove cut in a piece of soft sandstone.3 The arrow used was about three feet long. Sometimes two feathers stripped from the quill were passed around the small end in a twist and tied in place with sinews. This arrangement caused the arrow to revolve in its flight, giving it a horizontality and precision of motion which much increased its force. In this respect, the Iroquois hunter showed greater ingenuity than was displayed by the English and Scottish archers who never seemed to have discovered the advantages to be secured by a revolving motion of the arrow.* It is probable, however, that the Iroquois did not always make use of their invention, since a rotary motion often may not have been desirable in the woods. The Iroquois arrow-head was made of wood, stone, or bone: the

1

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 41.

2 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 46; Lafitau, II, 196; Morgan, “League,” pp. 305–306.

4

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 18, p. 43.

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, pp. 24-25; Morgan, "League," pp. 305-306.

Onondagas, according to Mr. Beauchamp, now use, and probably always have used, blunt headed arrows made entirely of wood: stone arrow-heads, however, seem to have been most commonly employed by the other tribes. These last were generally of the common flint of the region, chipped into a flat triangular shape. Less frequent than the stone were the bone and horn arrow-heads. These were sometimes merely hollow points into which the wooden shaft was fitted, and less often were solid pieces inserted into the wood. Most of the Iroquois arrow-heads, of whatever material, were barbed and fastened to the shaft with a strong fish glue, or bound on with sinew and cord.1

Traps and snares were much used by the Iroquois hunter. 2 They were generally made with the aid of strong bark or hempen ropes and cords.3 Mr. Morgan describes one species of deer trap, in which a young tree was bent over, and so adjusted that the springing of the trap fastened a loop around the hind legs of the animal, and at the same time released the tree, thus drawing the deer upwards and holding him suspended in the air.1 La Hontan says that foxes, bears, martens and some other varieties of game were also generally caught in traps.5 Beaver were rarely taken by this method, as the only kind of trap that could deceive them was made of a sort of willow very hard to get.

Their own

dam, in fact, when a hole had been cut in it and the water allowed to run out, formed an effective enough trap in which they could be killed with ease. In winter, however, they were often caught in nets spread under holes in the ice and baited with a bit of wood. Another use of the net was as a snare for wild fowl. According to La Potherie, the Iroquois used to "make a broad path in the woods, and attach to two trees, one on each side, a large net in the shape of a sack well opened." Sometimes seven or eight

1 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, pp. 15-38; No. 50, pp. 290293; Lafitau, II, 196.

hundred pigeons were thus captured in1 one night. Mr. Morgan describes a contrivance for corraling deer, which is based upon somewhat the same principle as the net for capturing birds. He also says that the Iroquois had no dogs adapted to the chase; yet when we consider the universal use of dogs for hunting purposes by all the other forest tribes, we cannot believe that they alone bred dogs only as articles of food. We are certain, at any rate, that the Hurons trained dogs to aid in the pursuit and capture of game, and that they valued them for this purpose even more than as food.2

The bow and arrow, traps and snares of various kinds, and perhaps the dog, were then the chief means of production used by the Iroquois hunter.

Fishing also necessitated the creation of a distinct set of implements, the most characteristic of which were the harpoon and the net. Although large fish were frequently shot with an arrow by a man wading in a shallow stream or standing in the bow of a canoe, 3 yet the harpoon1 was the weapon most often in the hands of the fisherman. It was made of bone or horn, pointed and barbed on one side or on both. The size varied: one fine specimen lately found on a village site in Monroe County, N. Y.—a single-barbed harpoon of elk-horn-measured nearly 101⁄2 inches in length, and was about half an inch broad in the middle. Such a head, attached to a stout staff, might do great execution in the hands of a skillful fisherman. La Jeune says that "in the eel. season a man might spear three hundred in a single night.” Fish-hooks do not seem to have been used to any great extent before the coming of the whites; nevertheless, a sort of bone hook was made, differing somewhat from that manufactured afterwards from the European model. Sagard describes the primitive

2 Jes. Rel., VI, 299, 303; XIV, 33; LVII, 299, 319; LXIII, 265; LX, 153. Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 19.

Ibid., No. 50, p. 293–304.

5 Jes. Rel., VI, 309.

"Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 50, pp. 304-311; Beauchamp, "Iroquois Trail,” pp. 92–93.

Huron invention as "a piece of wood and a bone, so placed as to form a hook, and very neatly bound together with hemp." Just how these articles were made we get no very good idea; at any rate, it seems certain that they were not much used. Besides the harpoon, the net was the chief implement used in fishing. The article itself was the product of considerable labor, involving the gathering and preparation of the hemp or bark fiber and its weaving into the desired fabric. The aid given by the net to the fisherman, however, repaid him for the time and pains spent in its manufacture. All the Iroquois made extensive use of the net, especially in the capture of smaller fish in the rifts and shallow places of streams where most of their fishing camps were situated. Here they could employ their favorite implement, either as a scoop-net or as a seine. Nets were used both summer and winter. The Hurons used to fish by this means through holes cut in the ice. The utility of both nets and harpoons was greatly increased by the use of weirs of various kinds within which the fish were driven in great numbers.2 The Hurons often placed hurdles in streams, with nets across the openings. The Oneidas, according to Mr. Beauchamp, "made fish-pounds with two rows of stakes across streams, driving the fish into them and killing them there." The Iroquois also built stone fish-weirs, one of which is still standing in the Seneca River-a stone wall several hundred feet in extent, and built zig-zag across the river. Considerable ingenuity was displayed in the construction of these weirs. 1656-7 the Jesuit Chronicler admiringly remarks: "Our savages construct their dams and sluices so well that they catch at the same time the eels that descend and the salmon that always ascend."3

1

In

Just as hunting and fishing led to the invention of certain implements of use in these pursuits, so also the practice of agriculture caused the employment of another special set of tools. After

1 Sagard, p. 259; Jes. Rel., XXXV, 175.

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 75; Beauchamp, "Iroquois Trail," pp. 92-93; La Potherie, III, 34.

2 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, pp. 76–78.

3 Jes. Rel., XLIII, 261.

66

the fire and the axe1 had been made to do their part in clearing the land, rakes, in the shape of a big wooden hook, were employed to drag the brush-wood along the ground to the heap where it was to be burned. In the roughly prepared ground, between the roots and stumps of the trees, corn hills about three feet in diameter and standing well apart were heaped up by the aid of another wooden tool. Lafitau describes this tool as a curved piece of wood, three fingers broad, attached to a long handle." With this digging stick eight or nine holes were made in a hill, and filled up again after the seed had been dropped in. Cultivation was carried on mostly with wooden hoes:3 sometimes a shell or the shoulder blade of a deer, fastened to a wooden handle, might be used instead.

2

Thus each of the great productive activities of the Iroquois led to the invention of certain necessary implements. Because they were hunters, they used the bow and arrow and traps of various kinds; because they were fishers they developed the idea of the harpoon, the net and the weir; as agriculturists they invented the rake, the digging stick, and the hoe; and in every branch of production, they used the knife and the axe. All these implements were of the most simple and primitive construction; nevertheless, they were made of the most available and easily manufactured material, and were exactly what was needed for the particular purpose for which they were invented.

Since the articles thus far mentioned were the means of producing raw materials, they have been called primary productiongoods. The subsequent working up of these raw products into finished consumption-goods demanded the invention of another set of implements, which may be designated secondary production-goods.

First on the list were the articles used in the preparation of food. To kindle the fire over which they cooked or smoked their provisions, the Iroquois used the weighted drill with spindle

'La Potherie, III, 18-19; Lafitau, II, 109-110; Champlain, p. 86.

2 Lafitau, II, 75 sq.; La Potherie, III, 19.

Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 54; No. 18, p. 24.