Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/649

 584 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1S99

away by time, there are none so evanescent as the portions of arrows of which I have just spoken. Aside from the stone head, the perisha- ble members of the arrow furnish excellent data for the study of technology, ethnography, geographic distribution, and mythology.

In this brief note attention is called simply to the feathering of arrows by the Amerinds. The characteristics subject to modification in the feath- ering are the feathers themselves, studied as to the number, the question of whole or half feathers, and the method of attachment ; the portion of the shaft to which the feathers are attached, and the treatment of the notch. All over the interior of Canada and the United States, and in certain portions of South America, three half-feathers are set on radially. They are usually tied at their ends to the shaft and, in addition to this, the midrib is glued to the arrowshaft, but there are certain restricted areas where these half-featherings are attached to the shaft by a con- tinued sewing. I have seen a few examples of these in southwestern United States ; it exists also in eastern Peru and on- the headwaters of the Amazon. On Xingu river the half-feathers are sewed to the wood of the shaft itself at certain points, but this seems to be quite local. The other form of administering the feather is to lay flat two whole feathers on the shaftment or inner end of the arrow, usually with the underside of the feather outward. The Eskimo attach these to the soft wood of the shaft by punching holes in the latter and inserting the ends of the feathers in these holes. Lashing is also added at both ends of the feathers. Whether or not through influences from without, since the occupancy of the whites, this form of two feathers laid on flat is not universal among the Eskimo, but exists only in the out-of-the-way and unsophisticated regions. It may be called, however, an Eskimo method of feathering. The flat shaftment and the peculiar release lend themselves to this sort of administration.

Passing down the Pacific coast to northwestern Washington among the Salishan tribes, we encounter again this form of feathering, wherein two whole feathers are attached to the soft cedar arrowshaft by lashings of bark. All the California arrows have three half-feathers set on radially, and in some of them there is a decided spiral in the application ; but around the mouth of Colorado river and in the mountain region of Mexico, below the boundary line, the two flat feathers occur again. They are found also among the Lacandones of southeastern Mexico.

In Hermann Meyer's Bows and Arrows in Central Brazil the two feathers laid on flat occur again, and, from the drawing, seem to be set so that the underside of the feather is outside on the lashing. I am especially interested, therefore, in getting at the correct geographic dis-

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