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Tools and Toolmaking By Goodchils from Native Lessons, Sept/Oct 1997

Stone was used to make a variety of tools: mauls and hammers, axe heads, adzes, hoes, knives, saws, arrowheads, spearheads, drill bits, and so on. Five principle techniques were used in their manufacture: chipping, pecking, and grinding were the most common techniques, but sometimes sawing or drilling was required. Bone decays eventually and leaves no trace, so it was probably used more often than archaeological sites suggest. Bone was used as often as stone for projectile points, especially on the Plains and in Canada. Good stone is absent from many parts of North America and bone was a reasonable substitute. Bone projectile points lacked the weight and sharpness of stone, but bone is an easier material to work than most kinds of stone. For some devices, such as needles, bone is superior. Various leg-bones of deer and other animals could be sharpened to be used as awls for making holes in skin or bark; the ulna, a long thin bone in the forelimb, only needed to have the tip snapped off and sharpened. The scapula of the same animals provided a hoe blade. A section of rib could be placed edgeways on a stone and tapped with another stone until it fell into two halves, and then it could be chipped and ground into the shape of a projectile point or knife blade. The leg bones of birds and small animals provided a cylindrical arrowhead; the shaft fitted loosely and fell away, harpoon like while the arrowhead remained in the animal. The front teeth of beaver or porcupine were bound to a wooden handle to form a tool used for scraping wood. The entire skull, minus the lower jaw, was used in a similar manner. The horns of buffalo, big horn sheep, and mountain goat were carved, boiled, and bent to form ladle-sized spoons. Shell was not a commonly used material, but aszes were made, on both the east and west coasts, by sharpening the edge of a large mussel or clam shell, and Nootka whalers used harpoon blades made from the California blue mussel. Arrowheads were also occasionally made from shell. Spoons were often made by chipping and grinding one end of a clam shell to form a short stem that could be inserted in a wooden handle.

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