Abstract
THE Pai-ute weapon, described by Mr. Mason in your last number (p. 107), although extremely interesting and quite new to me, appears scarcely sufficiently characteristic of a war weapon to form an exception to the statement of Schoolcraft, that the clubs of the North American Indians as a rule are curved. It would be interesting if it could be ascertained how such a peculiar instrument as that described by your correspondent came to be used as a weapon of war. Its form precludes the possibility of its having been designed for such a purpose. The mode of holding it suggests the idea of its having originally been used as a pounder, the thick end having perhaps been employed for pounding grain, beating out grass for cloth, or for preparing skins. It somewhat resembles the instrument used for making bark cloth in some of the Polynesian Isles, and it corresponds to the Beatle (Battelle) still used by Irishwomen for beating flax, and occasionally, I have no doubt, as a weapon of war; but these are used with the flat side, not the end. The only weapon I know of that is used like the Pai-ute club is the New Zealander's Merai or Pattoo-Pattoo, the sharp end of which is thrust into the back of the head of the offender; and I have suggested elsewhere that this peculiar and awkward mode of using it arose from its having been originally what its form resembles, a stone axe blade (celt), used as the Australians now use it sometimes, in the hand without any handle. The sharp edge at the end of the Merai shows its original intention, in the same way that the flat end of the Pai-ute club could never have been designed as an offensive weapon, but would have been useful as a pounder; it may be, in fact, a “survival” converted to other uses. There exists, of course, no law of nature to prevent North American Indians from using straight clubs as well as curved ones, but my observation of their weapons confirms the statement of Schoolcraft, that as a rule they do not. Amongst races in a more primitive state of culture, as amongst the Australians, we find that nearly every form of club that is made straight is used also in a curved form, the curvature arising merely from the natural bend of the branch out of which it was constructed; when these natural curves were found useful, they appear to have been retained and systematised. But the North American weapons are of a more advanced and conventionalised description and we cannot trace their origin and growth so clearly as amongst lower savages. The description of the Moquis boomerang by Mr. Mason is an interesting fact, which, combined with the mention of it by Bancroft amongst the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, points to the probability of a connected area of distribution. Drawings of weapons such as those given in your journal are of the utmost value in assisting to trace the distribution of like forms.
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LANE-FOX, A. American Indian Weapons. Nature 12, 125 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/012125b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/012125b0
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