POINTS
Algonquian
Blackfoot. meaning, use.
"When he reached home, Middle Calf made the sacred pipe just as he had
seen it in his dream. Its stem, less than eighteen inches in length, was
much shorter than that of most other medicine pipes. It was decorated with
pendant feathers, trade beads, and an obsidian arrowhead" (Ewers
1958:173).
" In recent years a few Montanans have been digging into the sites of
some of the piskans and finding quantities of flint and obsidian arrow and
spear points, flint knives, stone mauls and axes, bone fleshers and
scrapers, and other prehistoric artifacts in layer upon layer of buffalo
bones and even buffalo fur" (Schultz 1980:318).
Delaware. use.
"Projectile points were usually made of quartz, but chert, slate, shale,
granite, sandstone and argillite points have been found" (Newcomb
1956:26).
Athabaskan
Chipewyan. use.
"Copper was also used in making ice picks, spearheads, arrowpoints,
awls, drills and spoons" (Smith 1982:9).
Caddoan
Pawnee. use.
"An unusually fine point from a grave at the Hill site is made of
translucent white quartzite; it is 21/2 inches long, 1 inch wide at the base,
which is concave, and has a single pair of notches. It is thin and well made
and may have been used as a talisman or for some similar nonutilitarian
purpose" (Wedel 1936:75).
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ewers, John C.
1958 The Blackfeet: Raiders of the Northwestern Plains. University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Page: 1
This is primarily a general memory ethnography focusing on the Piegan and Blood ca.
1850. Ewers also presents a great deal of historical data from 1700-1950. The
ethnographic subjects covered are buffalo hunting, community life, arts and crafts,
warfare, leisure time activities, religion, and missionary activities. Most of the data was
gathered while Ewers was the curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian on the
Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana and southern Alberta. His field
work was conducted between 1941 and 1951.
Newcomb, William W.
1956 The Culture and Acculturation of the Delaware Indians.
Anthropological Papers 10, Museum of Anthropology. University of
Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
This monograph is a survey of the literature available between 1951 and 1952 on the
Delaware in Eastern Pennsylvania, southeastern New York, and northern New Jersey.
While the author spent two summers among the modern Delaware, and uses some of the
material gathered to show how the culture has changed, most of the material in the book
has been gathered from the literature from contact time onward. The author describes the
development of Delaware culture from a number of autonomous groups, and reconstructs
the culture under the following headings: technology, economics, material culture, life
cycle, kin groups, social control, war, religion and magic, and folklore. In addition to this
balanced description, the last third of the work deals with the historical changes which
occurred in Delaware culture as a result of contact with the whites, and the extent to
which acculturation occurred at various time periods up to the present, fifteenthnineteenth centuries.
Schultz, James W.
1980 Blackfeet and Buffalo: Memories of Life among the Indians. University
of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Schultz was a life long participant-observer (1877-1947) of Blackfoot Indian life at a
time of transition in northwestern Montana and southern Alberta, when traditional
hunting and raiding activities were coming to an end due to increasing penetration of
White settlers and government into their territory and to the extinction of the buffalo. The
book consists of tales and reminiscences of Blackfeet personally known by Schultz, and
thus conveys information about tribespeople with the vividness of lived experience. The
source is rich in data on traditional hunting and warfare practices, ritual and religious
belief. he researcher should note some "seeming [historical] discrepancies" (pp. x-xi)
owing to Schultz's overwhelming sympathy for the existential dilemmas faced by people
who were dear to him.
Smith, David M.
1982 Moose-Deer Island House People: A History of the Native People of
Fort Resolution. National Museums of Canada, Ottawa.
Page: 2
This a major historical ethnography of the Fort Resolution Chipewyan area, Northwest
Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nunavut, Canada. Smith reconstructs the
Chipewyan's aboriginal way of life and discusses their gradual assimilation during the
contact period, which he divides into three phases. In the Early Contact-Traditional Phase
(1786-1890), the Chipewyan participated in the fur trade, yet were able to maintain a
traditional way of life, with some adjustments. The major adjustment was a shift in the
territory they exploited from the transitional forest, where they hunted the Caribou, to the
boreal forest, where the fur-bearing animals lived. The Late Contact-Traditional Phase
(1890-1950) saw the intensification of commerce and trapping as a result of the loss of
the Hudson Bay Company monopoly. This change led to a more sedentary life as more
time was spent on the trap line. Following the terrible epidemics in the 1920s and 30s,
more Chipewyan sought refuge in Fort Resolution. In the Micro-Urban Phase (19501975) the fur trade has all but disappeared and the Chipewyan have become dependent on
wage employment and welfare. Fieldwork was conducted between 1968 and 1972.
Wedel, Waldo R.
1936 An Introduction to Pawnee Archaeology. Bureau of American
Ethnology Bulletin 112. U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington.
This monograph, written by an archaeologist, is a study of Pawnee archaeology and
culture history based primarily on artifacts in the Hill Collection at the Hastings Museum
in Nebraska that were excavated from the thirteen archaeological sites in 1930. He
discusses the journals and records of early explorers and adventurers to the region.
Although new archaeological fieldwork makes the archaeological data described in this
monograph outdated, the historical information and analysis of material culture make this
document a useful addition to an understanding of the Pawnee [Skidi (Skiri), Chawi, and
Kitkahahki bands; northern Kansas and Nebraska]. The monograph is divided into four
major parts, the first of which is introductory, the second, dealing in detail with the
historical background of the Pawnee, the third with Pawnee archaeology as viewed
through the various bits of evidence obtained from the excavation of prehistoric, and
early historic sites, and the fourth, the material culture of the early Pawnees as derived
from a study of the artifacts themselves. Pages 94-102 contain a summary of all data
presented in the monograph.
Page: 3