Research Items

Abstract

THE SPEARTHROWER IN AMERICA.—Some remarkable spearthrowers of ancient American origin are described by J. Alden Mason in the Museum Journal (Philadelphia) for September 1928. At the present day the spearthrower is used in America only by the Eskimo, certain of the tribes of the Amazon, and. the Tarascan Indians of Lake Patzcuaro, Mexico; but formerly it was employed much more widely. Specimens are known from the pre-Cliff Dweller remains of Utah belonging to the people known as the Basket-makers, from pre-Columbian Florida, and from pre-Columbian graves of the coasts of Peru and of Ecuador and Colombia, from the Aztecs of the time of Monte-zuma and from the Toltecs. The Haitians of the time of Columbus used it, as did certain Californian tribes of a century and a half ago. Not more than about thirty examples have been found in any one of these areas. Of the specimens here described, one belongs to the so-called Thule culture of the early Eskimo, and was found by W. B. Van Valin in the region of Point Barrow in 1919 in a series of mounds. It differs from any of the modern types, being of a superior grade alike from the aesthetic, technological, and utilitarian points of view. It is of a coniferous wood and measures 14¼ in. in length by 2¾ in. maximum width. Its peg is of ivory. The second example belongs to the Basket-makers' culture of Utah and was the first to be found in the south-west. It is remarkable for a number of ceremonial objects attached to the handle. These include the tooth of a canine or feline, wrappings of yucca fibre, cotton yarn, and fur; and an X-ray examination has revealed four beads, probably of turquoise and representing the heart of a fetish bird, which lie under the yarn and cannot be otherwise examined owing to the fragility of the material. Two spearthrowers which are unique, and the rarest known in America, come from Marco Key, Florida, where they were discovered in 1896. They are longer and more slender than spearthrowers from other regions, the closest approximations being those in use among certain eastern Colombian tribes. A carved rabbit at the distal end of one is reminiscent of the carved spearthrowers of the Magdalenian period of palæolithic Europe.