USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Bristol, Connecticut : "in the olden time New Cambridge", which includes Forestville > Part 9
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
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THE PESTLE.
Schoolcraft* writes that Indian corn was raised along the Connecticut and tributary valleys, and coarsely reduced in mortars of stone and wood. This meal was our New England "hominy." The writer has never seen any mortars of stone from this section that he considered to have been used for such a purpose. He thinks our aboriginal mortars were made of hard wood, tradition says pepperidge trees. (Nyssa Multiflora.)
Schoolcraft§ pictures a Pennacook squaw of New Hampshire, pounding corn in a mortar, which is on the ground beneath a tree. Above it there is attached by a long cord to an overhanging limb a stone pestle. The rebound of the limb seems to raise the pestle and her hand gives it the downward blow. The writer cannot help the suspicion that some of Schoolcraft's pictures of life are quite imaginary; still he has seen numerous pestles with projections or grooves on the end perfectly adapted to such suspension. Schoolcraftt also pictures a pestle with an animal's head on the upper end, saying that it was "a family name wrought by a symbol," what we should call a "totem." Two such pestles are in the Bristol Museum, but not from the section we are de- scribing. Pestles are quite frequently found, and being such conspicuous objects, usually reported to collectors. They never seem to have been polished, except from use on their working ends. Therefore in them we may see the art of pecking brought to its highest elegance, and many such objects are indeed most fair to look upon. In fig. 98, is shown a pestle from Bristol, found by the late' Caleb Matthews on Chippins Hill, seventeen inches long. Fig. 99, depicts an extra fine pestle from Farm- ington. Made of a dark material it is evenly pecked into a perfect shape all around. In another respect this pestle may be unique. It certainly is a novel"example of ancient stone art. Although made of a very hard stone, a hole of unknown depth about one half of an inch in diameter, has been drilled into its working end. Into this hole another stone of yet harder nature has been perfectly fitted, the whole being ground off evenly smooth. We have also another pestle in which a similar hole has been begun but left unfinished. The perfect pestle was found perhaps fifty years ago by an old negro who dwelt upon the site of the old Indian village. This old fellow had an exceedingly verdant memory, which reached backward several centurics while describing his remem- brances of the ancient red men, as he saw them shooting their arrows across the primeval reaches of the meadows. The writer must now ro- deem a pledge made to the old man a decade ago when the pestle was reluctantly given into his keeping-to immortalize both the pestle and its finder. Jacob Sampson Freeman, for half a century the custochian of this last vestige of some Sagamore, cherishing it almost as a Fetich, he became involuntarily an humble disciple of science. May his memory remain as green as his imagination, as his shade gambols through the happy hunting grounds. Our pledge is fulfilled. Requiescat in pace.
* "Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," Vol. I, p. 84.
§ Ibid, Vol. 4, p. 174.
t Ibid, Vol. 3, p. 466.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
"The devices of primitive man are the forms out of which all subsequent expedients arise. The whole earth is full of monuments of nameless inventors."-Mason .*
The general similarity of the culture existing among the Tunxis Indians to that of the natives of other sections of North America, as shown by their remaining implements, points to their common origin. Yet the dissimilarity of speech and the extent to which special forms of art and customs had differentiated in different sections, point also to a very ancient origin of man in America. In judging the advance and skill of any people by their artefracts, we must consider their surroundings, their food supply, and especially those materials upon which their skill might be expended. The comparative ease with which the more tract- able materials could be obtained must ever have had as large an effect upon the expansion of special arts as the pressure of that necessity called the "mother of invention."
Yet a comparison of such worked objects as we possess shows the TunxistIndian to have been capable of work equal to most any people of America-unless it be claimed, which we shall not consider, that his better objects were the result of barter. The Indians of this section are believed to have always been few in number; for, except he attach himself to some food supply that is either by nature or through his own efforts made regular and unfailing, man never multiplies rapidly nor emerges from a savage state. All the great Oriental civilizations grew up around the wheat, barley, rice or date fields, or in the pastures of domesticated animals. So in America the nuclei of budding civilizations were found amid the maize or cocoa fields, or attached to the buffalo or the llama. Elsewhere existed only different degrees of a baser savage- ism, and even that a largely degenerate and apparently a disappearing people.
Of the Connecticut Indians we are told, "The women of an ordinary family cultivated and harvested two or three heaps of maize in a season
Origin of Inventions, p. 413.
+ We know nothing of prehistoric migrations of tribes. Those Indians whose relics we are discussing may have been of a hundred successive nations.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
Windsor nosdow IT?
4.
7
3.
5ª.
5.
AGRICULTURAL TOOLS.
of from fifteen to twenty bushels each," and also raised beans, pumpkins and tobacco .* In their agricultural labors we are told that they used largely their fingers as tools. "The only other implements which the Indians seemed to have used were spades rudely constructed of wood, or a large shell fastened to a wooden handle."t As it must have been easier for the Indian to have made a stone spade than one of wood, such a conclusion seems hardly tenable.
Our early settlers were more interested in converting the Indian. when not killing him, than in studying his physical surroundings, to which we must owe the poverty of their descriptions
It is only the span of three generations since the learned men of Europe considered their prehistoric 'relies to be either the weapons of fairies or the thunderbolts of the god of lightning.
* DeForest, Indians of Connecticut, p. 5, quoting Roger William's hey + Ibid.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
While the ungrooved celt was a universal tool, curiously enough the grooved tool, excepting a few hammer forms, seems to have been mostly confined to America. The prehistoric dwellers of the Tunxis Valley left us many grooved implements, ranging from the rudely notched picks of the steatite miners, through more or less perfect axe-like forms, to little hatchets or tomahawks. These are mostly classed as axes, but from many years' study of the ruder forms the writer cannot con- sider them either rejects or unfinished axes, but believes many of them were used as earth picks and hoes in cultivating maize. The agricul- tural tools are more rudely made than celts, often merely coarsely flaked into shape. Showing no signs of hammer pecking, their only polish is that of use, and this shows chiefly on the bit and in the groove. When we examine such a tool it will be seen that a line drawn from the center of the head to the center of the blade shows the blade curving
b
GROOVED AXES.
12.
13
14.
11.
15.
141/2.
TOMAHAWKS.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
away to one side. Fig. 2 (Farmington). No one could direct a straight blow with such a tool used axe fashion.
Fig. 3 (Plainville) gives us a side view of this form of tool which shows the point contended. Various leaf-shaped tools seem to belong in the section of digging implements. Fig. 4, from Windsor meadow, shows a fine and ancient example. Chipped spades of quartzite, some- what resembling those from Illinois, only much ruder and smaller, have been found at Congamond Lake. They show a fine polish from use. Figs. 5, 5 (2).
The real grooved axe was built upon a straighter line than the hoe. Usually pecked into a more perfect shape, it was often laboriously pol- ished all over. The nomadic nature of our aborigines and the vast forests full of partly decayed timbers must have rendered a great number of these tools unnecessary, yet we find some fine examples. Fig. 6c illustrates one from Southington. Fig. 7 is an unusual specimen from Farmington Ornamented with a ridge around both sides of the groove, it was once polished all over, but has been roughened anew by the un- relenting fingers of time. Fig. 8 shows a fine flat axe from Plainville. We also illustrate another example in fig. 9.
We may here speak of the tomahawk, which doubtless served to break up wood and bones on the march as well as for purposes of war. Some of these are very axe-like, as the specimen, fig. 11 c from Southing- ton. Fig. 12 shows a very rare tool, a chipped quartzite hatchet from. Farmington. Fig. 13 shows a beautiful object of the celt type, from Burlington, which we consider a typical tomahawk. In fig. 14, from Farmington, we have a third type which must have been used exclu- sively for war or chase. We believe this to have been much the more common form. We read of the torture of captives by the Indians, who were said to have tied the victims to a tree and thrown tomahawks with such skill that they remained attached to the tree around the captive's head. The futility of such a use of the prehistoric tomahawks needs no comment. The curious reader can find in Vol. 2, p. 16, of Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," a Caribbean form of tomahawk, showing how they were helved, as given by Oviedo in his book, edition of 1547; fig. 1412. In this section we must include certain grooved stones found in Farmington and Southington, fig. 15 c. These stones were doubtless firmly fastened to a slightly elastic handle by a strap of rawhide and used as war clubs. We cannot agree with those who style them hammers.
GOUGES AND ADZES.
Closely connected with the celt and axe and having the same dua development, grooved and ungrooved types, are the gouge and adze They are among the most remarkable of ancient tools. Made of very hard stones they are always finely polished, and the cutting edge is always nearly perfectly symmetrical. They all agree in having one face flat and the other more or less acutely rounded. The gouges are hollowed out more or less deeply on the flat face and brought to a sharp curvi- linear blade; some representing nearly a half circle, while others are more expanded, a few being nearly flat.
Examples: from Farmington, fig. 16; Granby, fig. 17; Plainville, 18, and Bristol, 18 a, are shown. Fig. 19 shows a chipped quartzite gouge from Congamond Lake, which recalls the pleolithic implements of Sweden .* It is the general opinion that gouges were used in making canoes. The adze differs from the gouge in being made for a helve. It is usually less deeply hollowed, has a more curved back, with a flatter face. The arrangement for helving is often exceedingly ingenious, especially when we consider that it must have been planned before the stone was worked down to its final shape. Some are merely flat celt- like forms with the blade brought to an edge even with the lower surface
* In the writer's cabinet are two similar tools from Sweden.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
and only slightly curved to the sides. Fig. 20 shows a rare style from Granby, three inches long. Fig. 21 represents a typical form of adze, with a curved back and two ridges forming a raised groove for helving.
THE GOUGE-ADZE.
This implement combines the features of gouge and adze and is more common than the flat forms. The cutting edge varies the same as gouges and the raised back is sometimes grooved, and at others has carefully made ridges for attaching the helve, often so arranged as to protect the withe or strap used in seizing on the handle from the friction of use. Figs. 22, 23 R, 24, 25 illustrate the several forms.
In fig. 23 the mode of attachment is a small nipple-shaped pro- tuberance. Fig. 26 R, from Plainville, is a very peculiar form, only 212 inches long. It is exceedingly well made and deeply gouged on its face; upon its back is one very sharply made ridge. This tool must have had a small handle, probably of bone, and been driven chisel- fashion by a mallet. The illustrations show the several forms. This whole series of implements is of the highest interest but lack of space forbids further individual descriptions. This form of implement seems to have had a fuller development in New England than to the South or T'est.
16.
17.
18
18ª
19.
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20.
21.
GOUGES AND ADZES.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
26
24.
23.
25.
GOUGE-ADZES.
THE PLUMMET OR SINKERS.
Stones shaped like various styles of plummets are found all over the United States. Very elaborate forms in soapstone have been taken from the Florida mounds. The writer has collected them made from the central column of great sea shells (Busycon) on the shell mounds around, Tampa. They were probably used as ornaments, although their use is a disputed point among many archaeologists. We illustrate two local examples, fig. 27, Farmington; fig. 28, Plainville.
(A late writer in the Antiquarian contends that they were weapons to use as slings. We should enjoy seeing him using some of the plum- mets of shell, pottery and soapstone from the South.)
ORNAMENTAL AND CEREMONIAL OBJECTS.
That the ancient red man was not insensible to the seductions of pleasing shapes and colors is easily shown when we study their vestiges. Arrow points are found which today are valued for jewelry. No one can look over a good collection of these points without a feeling of wonder, not only at the great variety of shapes and materials, but also at the skill with which the beauties of the stone are made manifest. In all manner of implements we find uncommon and curiously marked stones. laboriously worked into shape. Upon the pottery we have already shown the love of ornamentation. The love for color expended itself also upon mats and basketry, of which we possess no prehistoric examples from this valley. Tanned skins and barks were dyed and painted Teeth and claws of animals were made into necklaces. Bones and shells were largely made into beads both for use as ornaments and for money But we know only of a few long beads from a grave in Farmington These long beads are considered as of greater antiquity than the wampum forms .; The Indian was also lavish in the use of paints upon his own person. We are able to illustrate two small paint cups, one of which was dug up by Mr. Jacob Mesrole, of Southington, near Wonx spring. and when found was partly filled with red paint powder, fig. 27 a, and
t Although these beads came from a grave in Farmington, the writer is not satisfied of their being prehistoric. He would be pleased to hear of any others from this section of the state.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
fig. 28 a, also from Southington. Lumps of red and yellow paints are not uncommon in Florida shell mounds. Aside from this use of paint and beads upon himself and his trappings, the subject of ornaments appears to have been closely allied to religious and ceremonial observ- ances. The Indian made various ornamental objects of stone, bone and shells. The stones were mostly beautifully grained slates or crys- talline forms. The use for which the varied objects were intended is yet buried in the oblivion that overwhelmed their makers. They no doubt filled a place in his imagination and helped to satisfy a craving, which, if it were not a love of art and beauty, was at least its embryonic form. They also doubtless had a further reason for being, some probably may have been the badges of official or priestly rank, and used as cere- monial accessories, while others may have simply ministered to the pride of their possessors, as mankind today takes pride in possessing painting and sculpture. Whatever may have been their use, they are found all over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, more or less sparsely in New England, and becoming more numerous and varied in shape as we approach the ancient centers of denser popula- tions. Uncommon forms have more restricted areas, and there is quite a perceptible difference in special arts among the Southern Indians, where certain forms unknown to New England are found. Various. names are given to these objects, according to the imagination of the describer. Curiously enough the older authorities in ethnology, such as Schoolcraft, seem to be the poorest. Comparative study has proven more valuable than tradition.
GORGETS AND PENDANTS.
Flat objects with two perforations whose opposite faces are always beautifully polished and which are usually symmetrical, that is if cut into two equal parts each would be the counterpart of the other, are called gorgets. Fig. 29 shows a beautiful specimen in green banded slate from Plainville. Similar objects with only one perforation, more usually near one end, are called pendants. Fig. 30 gives one of an unknown lightish colored material from Granby, and fig. 31 one from Southington of-black slate. Broken and decayed fragments of gorgets are frequently found on village sites.
AMULETS.
These are long and narrow stones, always highly polished, usually made of black or banded slate, having one face flat and the other either convex or triangular. They appear in two types, the plain bar; called bar amulet, or with the upper face more or less resembling a sitting bird, with an expanded tail, and head with projecting eyes, called bird amulet. Both forms agree in having one conical perforation at each end passing from the flattened base obliquely upward and outward. Fig. 32 shows a beautiful bar amulet of banded slate from Bristol. Fig. 33 shows a bird amulet from Ohio to illustrate the type. Fig. 34 repre- sents a bird amulet, the head broken off, made of soapstone, from Terry- ville. These objects are exceedingly rare in New England. Their use is unknown. The writer imagines them to have been connected with the operations of the shamans or priests called pow-wows. Fig 35 and 36 portray a very different form of ornament from Burlington. This handsome relic is a perfect specimen, and its perfection seems more wonderful when we consider that it was made with no other rule or. square than the eye and hand of the artisan. It has two perforations passing up from the center of the central boat-shaped groove at such an angle that a cord passed through each suspends the object on a level. It is made of banded slate. These stones are called shuttles, but of their use we know nothing; they are quite rare. Never bored except in the center, their perforations are always cylindrical and very small for an Indian tool. Fig. 37 shows a singular and well polished object from Bristol of no apparent use. This may be a clay stone, but it has
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
27
28.
27ª
28a
PLUMMETS AND PAINT CUPS.
the greasy polish of long handling, which seems to cling to an Indian implement for ages in the earth.
BANNER STONES.
The banner stones differ from other objects in this class in having one large perforation through the center. In this section all bores are round; west and south a few are found with oval perforations. Ex- aminations of a number of large collections seem to prove to the writer that all symmetrical forms have round bores, while those with a sym- metrical wing have oval bores. The writer would be pleased to learn of exceptions to this statement for New England.
These are among the choicest examples of prehistoric art. While mostly made of slate, many are found in very hard materials. Fig. 38 represents one from Columbia, Conn., worked from crystal. They seem to have been blocked out and shaped before being bored, as is shown in fig. 39 R from Farmington. They are thought to have been badges of office or ceremonial flags, borne upon handles which were doubtless painted and gayly bedecked with colored feathers and carried in dances and processions. The finished specimens are always very highly polished and almost perfectly symmetrical. Fig. 40 R represents a fine "butter- fly" banner from Bristol. In fig. 41 we illustrate an immense arrow- shaped stone found some twenty years ago in Southington. One face is of light gritty sandstone, the other of a smooth red shale almost slate. It is fully seventeen inches long, thirteen inches wide, and less than one inch thick. Its great size precludes any useful purpose We must believe that some figure was painted on its smooth face, and that it was used as a banner stone. Yet it may have been a totem. When shown to Prof. Otis T. Mason, the curator of ethnology of the National Museum, he told the writer that he knew of but two such objects, both being in Washington. They were much smaller, and came from the Apache country.
It opens a curious conjecture what the occurrence in so widely separated districts of such singular stones may mean, more especially when we consider that the Tunxan and Apache Indians probably represent different phylogenetic stems.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
29
30.
31,
GORGETS AND PENDANTS.
THE RELIGIOUS IDEA AMONG THE ALGONKINS.
It is not the scope of this paper to discuss the moral and religious life of our Indians. But a better appreciation of certain objects may be obtained by a slight glimpse into the workings of the later Indian's mind. Dr. Daniel Brinton1 has published a learned book upon Indian myths and religious traditions. Cushing2 is also publishing a singular attempt at describing the ancient Zuñian system of religious ceremonials. There works give us the remaining opinions of the higher minds, among the Indians and their traditions. It seems hardly probable that the common people comprehended what glimpses of ethical or cosmic truths might underlie their myths or ceremonials. For instance, the great divinity among the Algonkin people was Michabo-the great white rabbit. This word was compounded from michi (great) and wabos, the little grey rabbit of our woods. Now the Algonkin root word for white was wab. Dialectic forms occur, as waupan, the morning; waubon, the east, the dawn. The name michabo probably was really the great white dawn, the creating light, the morning and sunlight, which was a common form of Nature God among many people. But the Indian, confused by the similarity of the root form of the words, degraded the conception to a big white rabbit and made this nonsensical being his god. 3 Such misconceptions are not unknown in modern religious cults. Having no real monotheistic conceptions the Indian supplicated such local. superstitions as his fancy feared or hoped to bribe. Brinton gives an Algonkin5 prayer overheard by the Jesuit Brebœuf, anterior to 1636: "Oki thou who dwellest in this spot I offer thee tobacco. Help us; save us from shipwrecks; defend us from our enemies; give us good trade; bring us back safe to the village." This contains no moral drinciple: recognizes no relation above that of barter.
1. Myths of the New World. Phil., 1896.
2. 13th Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington.
3. Brinton, Ibid, p., 196.
4. Ibid, p. 339.
5. The historic Tunxans were of Algonkin stock.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
33.
34.
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AMULETS.
The Indian gave tobacco in exchange for that which he thought that the invisible could yield to or deny him. And yet is not this even a higher standard than that of some of our modern sagamores of trade who seek to bribe the demiurge of legislation for power to prey upon their fellowmen? Those ceremonial relations that grew out of the eti- quette of contact, or which were woven around the individual by tribal conservatism, modified by and intermingled with a belief in the incan- tations and conjurations of the Shamans, bounded the religious horizons of the common Indian. The Shamans or Pow-wows were the priests among the Indians; also the jugglers, nature-doctors, rain-makers and witch-finders. Incapable of comprehending the phenomena of nature, he lived in a superstitious fear of unseen influences and sought to pro- pitiate or deceive the forces that he supposed were behind them. But it is nowhere shown that he worshipped devils, any more than that Saul worshipped a devil when he besought the witch at Endor. Yet, cven if certain esoteric truths may have been conveyed along the centurics through the initiations of those secret societies which seem the common property of a certain stage of savagedom, they seemed to have exercised no ennobling power over the individual .* He was hopelessly entangled amid the meshes of an hundred ancient remembrances and customs whose beginnings and causations had been lost in the mist of ages, but whose power to enthrall him grew ever stronger with the procession of the years. We are irresistibly led to the conclusion that among the red men the religious idea had become completely submerged in the ceremonial. The spontaneity of the individual had been lost in a debasing web of ceremonial communism. Their myths indeed remained like those shining planets which science teaches us are dead and yet nightly parade the glittering but soulless shadows of once life-sustaining orbs. Communism invaded every walk of the Indian's life. Whatever he possessed, it forced him to share with others,t although among some tribes horses and probably arms and personal adornments belonged to individuals, male and female owning their own implements. The land, however, was held in common. When he died his chiefest pos sessions were commonly destroyed at his burial. His wife and children were usually left nothing. Religion demanded prolonged and shameful mourning among many tribes for the poor woman whose husband had departed for the happy hunting grounds. In every direction he seems to have been compassed about with customs that he dare not violate and yet which forbade the possibility of individual progress beyond fixed lines, hence everywhere we found the Indians a degenerating people.
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