Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/76

 alone or in connection with other implements. In some areas the club is an unadorned killing device, in others much skill is expended on it in decorations that are either totemic or sorcerous, and in its most efficient form it cuts or pierces as well. Throughout the buffalo country a peculiar form of club prevailed, and it is still seen, by the way, down to the borders of Mexico. A ball of stone is enclosed in a rawhide bag which is loosely attached to a short handle, after the manner of a flail.

On the western coast of the United States the sling begins to appear. Powers says that the Copehan tribes killed wild fowl with a sling, using bolas made of hard-baked clay. Ray also brought the sling from this region.

All over the southwestern country the non-returning boomerang is common. Lumholtz says the Tarahumari Indians kill birds with stones.

Gemelli Careri says that the Indians "kill" small birds on the highest trees with pellets shot out of trunks. The sling, however, had its greatest use and distribution on the cordillera of South America. The tribes of the Mato Grosso used a stunning dart with their throwing-sticks. Stunning arrows, sometimes bird arrows with blunt heads, are found all the way from the Arctic Eskimo to Argentina (plate, d). Wells mentions the use of the sling in Tierra del Fuego.

The fourth method of taking animals is with an edged weapon. The sword is the acme of all such inventions. In the almost entire absence of wrought metal, throughout America, slashing weapons were of stone, bone, or hardwood. The rapidity with which natives in all parts of this hemisphere adopted the use of iron and steel prevents the present examination of the method of using the primitive edged tools. However, there is no spot on either continent, where available material is to be found, that does not reveal the universal use of the hunting knife. The